Trains to Goodwood

Do you feel the need for speed? Perhaps the best-known event at Goodwood is the Goodwood Festival of Speed, an annual hill climb with some of the most exciting motors on the planet doing battle for glory. The event is held each spring in the grounds of Goodwood House in West Sussex, and some 100,000-plus motoring fans flock from all over the world to the petrol-head’s heaven, filled with cars and motorbikes hell-bent on conquering the incline. The festival was founded in 1993 by Lord March on the site of the Goodwood Circuit, and it’s gone from strength to strength ever since.

Classified as a hill climb with a 4.9% gradient, the track is separated from spectators by a just few straw bales, and it’s this openness that makes Goodwood so popular amongst visitors, with spectators right on top of the action and literally wandering the driver paddocks, smelling the diesel and feeling the torque. Goodwood, though, is more than just the Festival of Speed, it draws guests to exclusive, often private, events all year round. The 17th-century country house and private residence of the Duke of Richmond has house tours and exhibitions open to the public during the summer, when the Regency Ballroom also opens up for afternoon tea.