At the age of 28, in 1751, George William Coventry inherited the earldom of Coventry and Croome Court with its large estate. He was an intellectual young man, educated in the classics. In his early twenties he moved into politics, first becoming M.P. for Bridport and later, Worcester before entering the House of Lords. He and his elder brother, Thomas, were very interested in the trends towards classicism in architecture and the burgeoning age of Enlightenment. After his brother's death, George William determined to carry out the ideas he and Thomas had conceived for turning Croome into an icon of mid-18th century modernism. In 1751 he began his lifetime's work - bringing in 'Capability' Brown and Robert Adam and adding the finishing touches around 1800 with the help of James Wyatt. Brown succeeded in transforming the setting of Croome from a marshy piece of land into a spacious landscape, bordered by a gentle stream. When the earl commissioned Wilson to paint Croome Court in 1758 the nearby church was not finished - and was not included in Wilson's preparatory drawing (present location unknown), so the artist probably added it to the painting at the request of his patron.