Sir Stirling Moss was one of the founding patrons of the Festival of Speed, and a regular competitor at the Revival.
King Edward VII (who came almost every year) famously dubbed Glorious Goodwood “a garden party with racing tacked on”.
The first public race meeting took place in 1802 and, through the nineteenth century, ‘Glorious Goodwood,’ as the press named it, became a highlight of the summer season
Inspired by the legendary racer, Masten Gregory, who famously leapt from the cockpit of his car before impact when approaching Woodcote Corner in 1959.
Built in 1787 by celebrated architect James Wyatt to house the third Duke of Richmond’s prized fox hounds, The Kennels was known as one of the most luxurious dog houses in the world!
From 2005 to present there has been a demonstration area for the rally cars at the top of the hill
Each room is named after one of the hounds documented in January 1718, including Dido, Ruby and Drummer.
Whoa Simon! A horse so determined and headstrong, he not only won the 1883 Goodwood Cup by 20 lengths, but couldn't be stopped and carried on running over the top of Trundle hill
Future Lab is Goodwood's innovation pavilion, inspiring industry enthusiasts and future scientists with dynamic tech
Sir Stirling Moss was one of the founding patrons of the Festival of Speed, and a regular competitor at the Revival.
The oldest existing rules for the game were drawn up for a match between the 2nd Duke and a neighbour
Spectate from the chicane at the Revival to see plenty of classic cars going sideways as they exit this infamous point of our Motor Circuit.
FOS Favourite Mad Mike Whiddett can be caught melting tyres in his incredible collection of cars (and trucks) up the hillclimb
King Edward VII (who came almost every year) famously dubbed Glorious Goodwood “a garden party with racing tacked on”.
The red & yellow of the Racecourse can be traced back hundreds of years, even captured in our stunning Stubbs paintings in the Goodwood Collection
The first ever horsebox was used from Goodwood to Doncaster for the 1836 St. Leger. Elis arrived fresh and easily won his owner a £12k bet.
The red & yellow of the Racecourse can be traced back hundreds of years, even captured in our stunning Stubbs paintings in the Goodwood Collection
The first public race meeting took place in 1802 and, through the nineteenth century, ‘Glorious Goodwood,’ as the press named it, became a highlight of the summer season
King Edward VII (who came almost every year) famously dubbed Glorious Goodwood “a garden party with racing tacked on”.
Whoa Simon! A horse so determined and headstrong, he not only won the 1883 Goodwood Cup by 20 lengths, but couldn't be stopped and carried on running over the top of Trundle hill
Spectate from the chicane at the Revival to see plenty of classic cars going sideways as they exit this infamous point of our Motor Circuit.
The iconic spitfire covered almost 43,000 kilometres and visited over 20 countries on its epic journey and currently resides at our Aerodrome.
The famous fighter ace, who flew his last sortie from Goodwood Aerodrome, formerly RAF Westhampnett has a statue in his honor within the airfield.
The replica of the original Axminster carpet is so lavish that the President of Bulgaria came to visit it before its departure!
One of the greatest golfers of all time, James Braid designed Goodwood’s iconic Downland course, opened in 1914.
One of the greatest golfers of all time, James Braid designed Goodwood’s iconic Downland course, opened in 1914.
The first ever round of golf played at Goodwood was in 1914 when the 6th Duke of Richmond opened the course on the Downs above Goodwood House.
The Motor Circuit was known as RAF Westhampnett, active from 1940 to 1946 as a Battle of Britain station.
The iconic spitfire covered almost 43,000 kilometres and visited over 20 countries on its epic journey and currently resides at our Aerodrome.
The famous fighter ace, who flew his last sortie from Goodwood Aerodrome, formerly RAF Westhampnett has a statue in his honor within the airfield.
As the private clubhouse for all of the Estate’s sporting and social members, it offers personal service and a relaxed atmosphere
Ensure you take a little time out together to pause and take in the celebration of all the hard work you put in will be a treasured memory.
The first public race meeting took place in 1802 and, through the nineteenth century, ‘Glorious Goodwood,’ as the press named it, became a highlight of the summer season
The first ever round of golf played at Goodwood was in 1914 when the 6th Duke of Richmond opened the course on the Downs above Goodwood House.
The iconic spitfire covered almost 43,000 kilometres and visited over 20 countries on its epic journey and currently resides at our Aerodrome.
As the private clubhouse for all of the Estate’s sporting and social members, it offers personal service and a relaxed atmosphere
The famous fighter ace, who flew his last sortie from Goodwood Aerodrome, formerly RAF Westhampnett has a statue in his honor within the airfield.
The Motor Circuit was known as RAF Westhampnett, active from 1940 to 1946 as a Battle of Britain station.
Testament to the 19th-century fascination with ancient Egypt and decorative opulence. The room is richly detailed with gilded cartouches, sphinxes, birds and crocodiles.
Inspired by the legendary racer, Masten Gregory, who famously leapt from the cockpit of his car before impact when approaching Woodcote Corner in 1959.
Flying training began at Goodwood in 1940 when pilots were taught operational flying techniques in Hurricanes and Spitfires.
A 20m woodland rue, from Halnaker to Lavant, was planted by our forestry teams & volunteers, featuring native species like oak, beech, & hornbeam
"En la rose je fleurie" or "Like the rose, I flourish" is part of the Richmond coat of Arms and motto
Our gin uses wild-grown botanicals sourced from the estate, and is distilled with mineral water naturally chalk-filtered through the South Downs.
The famous fighter ace, who flew his last sortie from Goodwood Aerodrome, formerly RAF Westhampnett has a statue in his honor within the airfield.
“It was serendipity,” declares Rupert Wasey, the aviation enthusiast and aeronautical engineer behind Hercules Propellers in Stroud, Gloucestershire, explaining how he came to be on the cusp of fulfilling a long-held ambition: to make propellers for Spitfires, just 10 miles away from Rotol, one of the factories where the blades were first made.
Spitfires are a regular sight in the skies above Goodwood, just as they were during World War II, when the estate was home to an RAF airfield – later transformed into the estate's motor circuit by Frederick Gordon-Lennox, the 9th Duke of Richmond. “Today, there’s a whole cottage industry making Spitfire parts for enthusiasts,” Wasey says, referring to the owners who restore these icons of British aviation and military history, forever synonymous in the national imagination with “the Few” and “our finest hour”. Yet ironically, the only CAA-approved manufacturer of the propeller blades is based in Germany, and while there are surely no hard feelings some 77 years after the Battle of Britain ended, it’s true that “many Spitfire owners want all of their plane to have been made in Britain”.
Launched in 2008, Hercules Propellers grew out of Wasey’s love of both flying and making. He’d built his own 1920s-style biplane, only to discover that the propeller blades he’d purchased weren’t to his satisfaction. So he made his own. Today he makes propellers for “all kinds of weird and wonderful planes, from all around the world. What we do is bespoke, mostly working in beech, as it’s straight-grained and sustainable.” And while it’s illegal to import the Honduran mahogany with which many blades were traditionally made, Hercules has a stock of the wood. “We make blades out of old mahogany church pews, so it’s ‘on a wing and a prayer’.”
We were doing reverse engineering... It felt odd, cutting up a piece of history like that. But it was all for a good cause.”
The one material that has been taxing Wasey’s engineering skills for several years now is Hygdulignum: the wood laminate used to make Spitfire propellers during World War II by manufacturers such as Rotol and Hordern Richmond, the aeronautical engineering company founded in 1937 by test pilot Edmund Hordern and the 9th Duke of Richmond.
“It’s a wonderful material,” says Wasey, “made with thin layers of birch.” And while Hygdulignum is still made, Wasey’s team lacked the original specs that could help secure approval, once his team could build the machinery to produce the blades. “We were doing reverse engineering, taking apart original Spitfire blades to test the qualities of the materials. It felt odd, cutting up a piece of history like that. But it was all for a good cause.” Hercules even made pen barrels with the leftovers of “this beautiful material, it looks like caramel!” – the sale of which helped fund its research.
“Then out of the blue we got this phone call.” In the Fifties, Hordern Richmond had been taken over by a similar business called Permali, based up the road in Gloucester. “There, for half a century, its archive had been kept in drawers which nobody ever opened. All this was about to go into a skip when someone thought to Google ‘propeller manufacturers’, spotted us, and called to ask, ‘Do you want to see these drawings?’ They gave us these beautiful, large-format, pen-and-ink drawings – for an engineer like me, works of art in themselves. Then we turned a page and there it was, a drawing marked ‘Spitfire Mk VII Merlin Engine 1942’.”
Today, Wasey, armed with those precious specs, a determined team, and the archive of their neighbours Rotol (now part of Dowty Propellers), is working through the approval process, and hopes to start manufacturing Spitfire blades soon – “under the name of Hordern Richmond, which we’ve acquired, as we felt that would be appropriate”.
This article is taken from the Goodwood magazine, Summer 2017 issue
Image from aviation-images.com
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