Rosemary Sweet writes: Antiquaries such as Charles Lyttelton and Richard Gough played a pivotal role in establishing the systematic study of architectural history, and in their re-evaluation of the Gothic style of architecture contributed to the development of a historicist approach to the past.

[1]William Borlase addressed to him his volume on Scilly (1758), Andrew Coltee Ducarel inscribed to him a work on Anglo-Norman antiquities (1767), and Samuel Pegge wrote to him an essay on the coins of Cunobelin (1766).

They formed the basis of Treadway Russell Nash's History of Worcestershire, and of the works of later writers on the county.

Not the least of his impact was in his encouragement of his ward Samuel Hellier to study at Exeter College, Oxford, where he developed a passion for music.

Charles Lyttelton on churches, other buildings and antiquities in various counties known as the Lyttelton Bequest at the Society of Antiquaries[3] are of importance because, as Rosemary Sweet observed in her book Antiquaries: The Discovery of the Past in Eighteenth-Century Britain, "Charles Lyttelton was one of the first to attempt a systematic study of Saxon and Gothic architecture…" and "he put pressure upon the society to publish plates of what he took to be Saxon buildings…and supported the move to commission engravings of the illustrations of the Caedmon manuscript, chiefly because they served to illustrate Saxon architectural features".

[4] Images held in the archive of the Conway Library at The Courtauld Institute of Art, which are listed as "From 'Drawings of Saxon Churches'; collection by Lyttleton, Soc.