When was goodwood house built

He walks slowly, pausing to gaze at the first green shoots of spring. He is also a chartered accountant and chairman of the Goodwood Group of Companies. His family settled here in and there are still 12, acres of West Sussex countryside under his stewardship. Now in his 80th year, the Duke has seen the estate change almost beyond recognition. There were probably people here. Now we have staff and a group of five core businesses. There were a lot of clocks, some of them extremely valuable, so the man came from the watchmakers to wind the clocks once a week.

My brother and I saw little of our parents — we had our day nursery and our night nursery — and nanny took us downstairs every afternoon for tea. Then we went back upstairs. We went to school in London, and every morning we dressed in our Gordon tartans — if you were Scottish in any way, you flaunted it. Then we went away to boarding school and that was rather a shock. The family has glamorous, rather racy origins.

He was the first Duke to have a proper job — he was an apprentice at Bentley — before that Dukes were mainly military men, that was something they could be seen to be doing. Some of my ancestors had some trouble keeping their expenditure within their income. The 3rd Duke, who was a man of great vision and who built Goodwood House in , was a man who thought big.

That was a lot of money then. We got out of that when, two generations later, the Duke married the only daughter of the Duke of Gordon. There were no sons so all the Gordon land came to the Richmonds. Then in he brought in James Wyatt to design the Kennels, which now serve as the clubhouse for the Goodwood golf club. The 3rd Duke was also responsible for Goodwood Racecourse, which is home to an annual race meeting dubbed 'Glorious Goodwood', one of the highlights of the horse-racing calendar.

The House Goodwood is one of the finest stately homes in England, blsed with a superb art collection including works by Van Dyck and Reynolds in addition to the Canaletto and Stubbs works mentioned earlier. In addition to the paintings there are displays of Sevres ceramics, 18th century furniture from France and England, and Gobelin tapestries. A large portion of the art collection once graced the walls of Richmond House in London before that house was destroyed by a fire in The original Jacobean house, dubbed 'the old house' is still intact at the rear of the main house block.

Festival of Speed This annual festival takes place in late June or early July and is based around a hill climb by historic racing vehicles. Antique and vintage vehicles take part, including motorcycles.

The Festival was launched in and draws , visitors over 3 days, with all admission by pre-booked ticket.

The real attraction of the Festival of Speed is that visitors can walk around the racing paddock and see vehicles and drivers close up. As an added note, be aware of when the Festival of Speed is on, even you do not intend to visit, as the roads surrounding Goodwood can became exceptionally busy and clogged with traffic for miles in all directions I speak from experience!

Goodwood House is open to the public for tours 60 days each year and is a member of the Historic Houses association. Woodend Annexe, Fontwell - 3. Long Meadow, Midhurst - 6. The Dean Inn - 2. The 5th Duke of Richmond — was a notable collector, and in fact donated many objects to the museum when it was in its previous embodiment as the Chichester Literary and Philosophical Society, some of which may still be in the collection today. Both the 2nd Duke and the 3rd Duke were great art collectors.

The 2nd Duke went on a Grand tour visiting Florence, Venice and Rome; he returned with a great interest in classical architecture and in London built Richmond House. The 2nd Duke kept a Menagerie at Goodwood which included a lion and monkeys; he did get an elephant but it died at sea. Matthew Brettingham was employed by the 2nd Duke of Richmond to enlarge the house to the south, including the addition of a pedimented front.

Unfortunately the Duke died in before this could be finished and it was left to William Chambers to complete the interior of the property. His son the 3rd Duke of Richmond also took to remodel the property, extending the North Wing in He supported the American cause in their War of Independence and as a consequence he may have received a parchment copy of the American Declaration from the philosopher Thomas Paine.

In the 19th century the 6th Duke was a political figure; he was aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington and to Lord Hill In the House of Lords he became leader of the Conservative party, he was President of the Council in and in Secretary for Scotland. Overall the estate has 12, acres of land of which 3, acres make up Home Farm. In the s the then farm manager Karl Barton initiated the conversion to an organic and self-sufficient farm.