The bricks lining the Festival of Speed startline are 100 years old and a gift from the Indianapolis Speedway "Brickyard" in 2011 to mark their centenary event!
Legend of Goodwood's golden racing era and Le Mans winner Roy Salvadori once famously said "give me Goodwood on a summer's day and you can forget the rest".
One Summer, King Edward VII turned his back on the traditional morning suit, and donned a linen suit and Panama hat. Thus the Glorious Goodwood trend was born.
The red & yellow of the Racecourse can be traced back hundreds of years, even captured in our stunning Stubbs paintings in the Goodwood Collection
Inspired by the legendary racer, Masten Gregory, who famously leapt from the cockpit of his car before impact when approaching Woodcote Corner in 1959.
The oldest existing rules for the game were drawn up for a match between the 2nd Duke and a neighbour
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.
Revel in the history of our hounds with their family trees dating back to some of our earliest documents at Goodwood.
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
For the last two years, 5,800 bales have been recylced into the biomass energy centre to be used for energy generation
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.
For safety reasons F1 cars can no longer do official timed runs so instead perform stunning demonstrations!
Festival of Speed is our longest-standing Motorsport event, starting in 1993 when it opened to 25,00 people. We were expecting 2000!
Goodwood Motor Circuit was officially opened in September 1948 when Freddie March, the 9th Duke and renowned amateur racer, tore around the track in a Bristol 400
Our replica of the famous motor show showcases the "cars of the future" in true Revival style
Flying jetpacks doesn't have to just be a spectator sport at FOS, you can have a go at our very own Aerodrome!
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.
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
Leading women of business, sport, fashion and media, take part in one of the most exciting horseracing events in the world.
Leading women of business, sport, fashion and media, take part in one of the most exciting horseracing events in the world.
King Edward VII (who came almost every year) famously dubbed Glorious Goodwood “a garden party with racing tacked on”.
King Edward VII (who came almost every year) famously dubbed Glorious Goodwood “a garden party with racing tacked on”.
King Edward VII (who came almost every year) famously dubbed Glorious Goodwood “a garden party with racing tacked on”.
The Fiat S76 or "Beast of Turin" is a Goodwood favourite and can usually be heard before it is seen at #FOS
The Motor Circuit was known as RAF Westhampnett, active from 1940 to 1946 as a Battle of Britain station.
One of the greatest golfers of all time, James Braid designed Goodwood’s iconic Downland course, opened in 1914.
We have been host to many incredible film crews using Goodwood as a backdrop for shows like Downton Abbey, Hollywood Blockbusters like Venom: let there be Carnage and the Man from U.N.C.L.E.
After a fire in 1791 at Richmond House in Whitehall, London, James Wyatt added two great wings to showcase the saved collection at Goodwood. To give unity to the two new wings, Wyatt added copper-domed turrets framing each façade.
Ray Hanna famously flew straight down Goodwood’s pit straight below the height of the grandstands at the first Revival in 1998
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 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 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.
One of the greatest golfers of all time, James Braid designed Goodwood’s iconic Downland course, opened in 1914.
Flying training began at Goodwood in 1940 when pilots were taught operational flying techniques in Hurricanes and Spitfires.
Ray Hanna famously flew straight down Goodwood’s pit straight below the height of the grandstands at the first Revival in 1998
We have been host to many incredible film crews using Goodwood as a backdrop for shows like Downton Abbey, Hollywood Blockbusters like Venom: let there be Carnage and the Man from U.N.C.L.E.
The exquisite mirror in the Ballroom of Goodwood House it so big they had to raise the ceiling to get it inside!
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.
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 ever horsebox was used from Goodwood to Doncaster for the 1836 St. Leger. Elis arrived fresh and easily won his owner a £12k bet.
One of the greatest golfers of all time, James Braid designed Goodwood’s iconic Downland course, opened in 1914.
Just beyond Goodwood House along the Hillclimb, the 2nd Dukes banqueting house was also known as "one of the finest rooms in England" (George Vertue 1747).
Testament to the 19th-century fascination with ancient Egypt and decorative opulence. The room is richly detailed with gilded cartouches, sphinxes, birds and crocodiles.
The famous fighter ace, who flew his last sortie from Goodwood Aerodrome, formerly RAF Westhampnett has a statue in his honor within the airfield.
We have been host to many incredible film crews using Goodwood as a backdrop for shows like Downton Abbey, Hollywood Blockbusters like Venom: let there be Carnage and the Man from U.N.C.L.E.
For the last two years, 5,800 bales have been recylced into the biomass energy centre to be used for energy generation
The Motor Circuit was known as RAF Westhampnett, active from 1940 to 1946 as a Battle of Britain station.
The oldest existing rules for the game were drawn up for a match between the 2nd Duke and a neighbour
Our gin uses wild-grown botanicals sourced from the estate, and is distilled with mineral water naturally chalk-filtered through the South Downs.
For Goodwood flying instructor Sam Worthington-Leese, building the world’s only airworthy Hawker Typhoon isn’t just a labour of love, it’s a chance to honour his grandfather’s World War II valour
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Typhoon
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Flying
War has little respect for weekends. Rather than being allowed to lie in on the morning of Sunday 21 May 1944, the pilots of 184 Squadron of the Royal Air Force were ordered out of their beds at RAF Westhampnett near Chichester in West Sussex and told to fly some 200 miles to the Dutch coast near Antwerp. Their mission was straightforward – to perform a “fighter sweep”. In layman’s terms, this meant popping below the clouds and looking for easy prey, such as railway engines, tanks, lorries, barges, enemy troops – and then destroying them.
The squadron had the perfect tool for the job: the mighty Hawker Typhoon. Equipped with four 20mm cannons, up to eight rockets and two bombs, the fighter-bomber packed a fearsome punch. It even struck fear into the heart of Rommel, who would later that year blame the Typhoon for his inability to move his armour during the Battle of Normandy.
Piloting one of the Typhoons that morning was a 24-year-old officer called Roy Worthington. A veteran of the campaign in North Africa, during which he had broken his back after parachuting from a Hurricane, Roy was a highly experienced pilot who had risen through the ranks before being commissioned the previous November. Proud he may have been of his commission, but Roy would have been prouder still of Margaret, his WAAF sweetheart, whom he had married just a few weeks before. Now there was another reason not to be shot down.
Unfortunately, we only have a few details of precisely what happened that morning. What we do know is that the cloud was heavy, because according to the squadron’s records, one section decided to turn back. The other section, however, pressed on to Holland, and was duly rewarded. In the somewhat jocular vernacular used in such reports, it “collected a railway train and a few barges beside the odd water tower”. It is not clear whether Roy took part in such “collecting”, but what we do know is that he did not make it back to Westhampnett. “Pilot Officer Worthington peeled off on the Dutch coast,” the records state, before adding with a hint of disapproval – “for no apparent reason, and was posted missing”.
So what had happened? In fact, Roy had been hit by flak as he was flying over the coast, and with his Typhoon damaged, he was in no position to make it back over the treacherous North Sea. Instead, he took advantage of the fact that he was flying over one of the flattest stretches of land in the whole of Europe and force-landed his Typhoon in a field in the Walcheren Islands. As was his duty, Roy did his best to evade capture. He stayed that night with a Dutch family, but the following day he was caught and he would see out the war in the notorious Stalag Luft III, from where the famous Great Escape had taken place just two months previously.
In a way, Roy was lucky. Of the 1,200 men who flew the Typhoon, an eerily satanic 666 were killed. In all likelihood, being hit by flak saved his life. After the war, Roy became a schoolteacher, and he and Margaret had children and grandchildren. He died in September 1990 at the age of 71.
Some seven decades after that fateful flight, one of Roy’s grandchildren decided on a whim one day to research what had happened to his grandfather’s Typhoon. It was 2013, and thanks to cuts in the defence budget, Sam Worthington-Leese had just lost his job as a trainee pilot in the RAF and had plenty of time on his hands.
“I managed to find the serial number of his plane,” Sam recalls, “and eventually found myself at some random internet forum where a Dutch chap revealed that he had visited the site where my grandfather had landed, and had even recovered a whole load of parts which a farmer had been keeping in his barn for many years.”
Before the story goes any further, it is essential to provide a full description of Sam. Tall, blond, slim and good looking, he looks every bit the central casting model of a World War II fighter pilot. It also helps that he is, in fact, a pilot, so when he wears a flight suit and is accompanied by his spaniel, Eric, you would be forgiven for thinking that you’d travelled back in time. What completes the picture is that Sam works as an instructor at the very airfield from which his grandfather flew his Typhoon that Sunday morning in 1944, although it has since been renamed Goodwood Aerodrome.
Roy had been hit by flak, and, with his Typhoon damaged, was in no position to make it back over the North Sea
Visiting his office, which is festooned with pieces of old aircraft, along with pictures of Spitfires and Lancasters, it’s easy to think that Sam is a man born after his time, and that he’s trying too hard to emulate his grandfather. As it happens, Sam is unapologetic. “I’ve always seen myself as a Battle of Britain pilot who was born too late,” he admits. “And I’ve always been fascinated by the military side of flying, especially with the Second World War. In fact, my primary reason for joining the RAF was to fly with the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.”
Although austerity may have scuppered that particular dream, Sam’s research has now given rise to the possibility of living an even more spectacular one – to fly a restored Typhoon built to some extent from the parts of his grandfather’s plane.
For it was via that obscure internet forum that Sam met Dave Robinson, who had long collected old pieces of Typhoon with a view to making a replica of a cockpit. “Every single Typhoon was scrapped after the war,” says Sam, “and Dave has always been keen to educate people about this aircraft.”
In 2010, Dave’s plan was given an unexpected boost when an extraordinary discovery was made on a skip at the old Hawker aircraft factory in Kingston-upon-Thames. Contained in seven large drawers were some 11,500 technical drawings, of which 2,500 were of the Typhoon. These showed an enormous amount of detail of how the plane was built, and Dave realised that if he bought them, it would be possible to build not just a cockpit, but a whole actual plane – and what was more, a plane that could actually fly.
It was from that moment that the scheme to produce the only airworthy Typhoon in the world was born. When Sam joined the project – along with Jonathan Edwards, a professional draughtsman and aerodynamics engineer – what had been a hobby now became a serious enterprise. A charity was established, with a goal to raise £6 million and to have the Typhoon in the air by 2024 – the 80th anniversary of both D-Day and Roy Worthington’s flight.
There is no doubt that the project is enormously ambitious. “People say we’re mad and that it’s going to be difficult,” says Sam. “And we just agree. Of course we’re mad. We always say if we want an easy life, just rebuild a Spitfire, which these days are almost coming off a production line.”
There will doubtless be plenty of obstacles, not least because the Dutch collector had already sold many of Sam’s grandfather’s Typhoon’s parts to the legendary American collector Kermit Weeks. But thanks to the drawings and the parts that the team already has salvaged from numerous Typhoon remnants, there is no reason why the plane cannot be built if the money is raised.
Warbird enthusiasts are salivating at the thought of a Typhoon taking to the skies. “The whole thing is fantastic,” says the leading World War II historian and TV presenter James Holland. “Nothing would give me more pleasure, and it’s the one aircraft, more than any other in the world, that I want to see flying again. It was just an awesome aircraft. It wasn’t only a key component of the Allied victory, it also looked terrific – mean and ferocious, like a beast.”
Of course, the most excited person of all is Sam. When he sits in that Typhoon in 2024, flicking the very same cockpit light switch that his grandfather would have touched, he will no doubt feel a shiver down his spine. But Sam is insistent that the project is not just some boys making a very special toy.“We’re not just building this plane for the hell of it,” he says. “This is intended to be a living memorial to all those who died flying the Typhoon.”
Words by Guy Walters, Photography by David Goldman
This article is taken from the Goodwood magazine, Winter 2017 issue
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Typhoon
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