Westwood House

Westwood House, near Droitwich in Worcestershire is a stately home that has been subdivided into twelve self-contained apartments. Situated west of Droitwich, the house with origins as an Elizabethan banqueting hall with Caroline additions is a Grade I listed building and was for several centuries the seat of the Pakington family. It lies in the centre of its former estate, Westwood Park, which is Grade II listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

With its four diagonal wings, added to the original, early-17th century house at some time later in the same century, the house's design was a precursor of the Butterfly plan which became popular in the 19th century.

Situated on a rising ground, the house greatly resembles a Norman chateau; it is built of brick with stone quoins and parapets. The core of the house dates from about 1600 and is square and three storeys high; the saloon occupied the first floor, and was lighted by large bay windows. Wings project in a line from the centre of each corner of the house, and communicate, by doors on each floor, with the central building. At some distance from each wing, yet opposite to them, are small square towers that were once connected by walls with the main building; but the walls have been removed, or fallen, and the towers now stand alone.

The gatehouse is immediately in front of the house at some little distance in advance; the gate has a red brick lodge on each side of it with ornamental gables and pinnacles. The gate between them is ornamented with the heraldic bearings of the family, the mullet or star of five points, and below them the garbs or wheat-sheaves. These bearings are also sculptured on the parapets, the wheatsheaves forming the pilasters and the mullets the balusters. The timber-work over the gate, with its high pointed roof and small pinnacle, is very picturesque.

The stables and servants' offices were a short distance in the rear of the house, and the kitchen garden covers the site of the long since demolished convent.

Writing in 1891 Laura Valentine commented that the house was in the centre of a large and well-wooded park, with a lake of some size to the east, and a lovely avenues of grand old trees radiating from it. The front of the mansion commanded a view of the lake. From Windows in the library a grand view was obtained over "a most beautiful and undulating country". The lake (which occupies 60 acres (24 ha)), the radiating avenues, and the ancient oaks added to its beauty. "There is, indeed, all over Worcestershire a soft beauty of landscape that is very bewitching".

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