Richard Payne Knight (1750-1824) inherited the Downton Estate in Herefordshire, where he built a castle from his own designs, inspired by the drawings of Claude Lorrain of which he himself had formed a collection of over 250 examples. He travelled extensively in Italy - first in 1767-8; again in 1777 in the company of Jakob Philipp Hackert, when he visited Sicily; and in 1785 when he stayed with Sir William Hamilton in Naples.