Castle Goring is a

Grade I listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

country house An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peop ...

Worthing Worthing () is a seaside town in West Sussex, England, at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of Chichester. With a population of 111,400 and an area of , the borough is the second largest component of the Brighton and Ho ...

, in

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

about northwest of the town centre. One of Worthing's two Grade I

listed buildings In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

(deemed by the

Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport , type = Department , logo = Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport logo.svg , logo_width = , logo_caption = , seal = , seal_width = , seal_caption = , picture = Gove ...

to be of exceptional interest), it has been described by architectural critic

Ian Nairn Ian Douglas Nairn (24 August 1930 – 14 August 1983) was a British architectural critic who coined the word "Subtopia" to indicate drab suburbs that look identical through unimaginative town-planning. He published two strongly personalised criti ...

as reflecting "the equivocal taste of the 1790s as well as anywhere in the country." Castle Goring was designed by John Rebecca for

Sir Bysshe Shelley, 1st Baronet Sir Bysshe Shelley, 1st Baronet (21 June 1731 – 6 January 1815) was the grandfather of English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Life Shelley was born in Newark, Essex County, Province of New Jersey (present-day United States) on 21 June ...

. It was intended that his grandson, the renowned poet

Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 17928 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achi ...

, would live at Castle Goring; however, he drowned in Italy aged 29, so he never took possession of the house. In 1845,

Mary Shelley Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (; ; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel '' Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also ...

, who inherited the building as widow of the poet, sold it to tenant Sir

George Brooke-Pechell Vice-Admiral Sir George Richard Brooke-Pechell, 4th Baronet (30 June 1789 – 29 June 1860), born George Richard Pechell, was a British Royal Navy officer and Whig (British political party), Whig politician. He was a Member of Parliament (United ...

who'd been residing at the property since 1825. It is currently owned by

Lady Colin Campbell Georgia Arianna, Lady Colin Campbell (''née'' Ziadie, born 17 August 1949), also known as Lady C, is a British Jamaican author, socialite, and television personality who has published seven books about the British royal family. They include ...

.Lady Colin Campbell (website retrieved 28 September 2018):http://www.castlegoring.com/ladyc.html

Location

When it was built in the 1790s, Castle Goring was in the far north of the parish. Since

Goring-by-Sea Goring-by-Sea, commonly referred to simply as Goring, is a neighbourhood of Worthing and former civil parish, now in Worthing district in West Sussex, England. It lies west of West Worthing, about west of Worthing town centre. Historically in ...

became part of the borough of Worthing in 1929, development has extended to the borders of the Castle Goring estate, and the estate now borders on the West Durrington area of the town, several kilometres from the original centre of Goring. Castle Goring lies adjacent to the

A27 road The A27 is a major road in England. It runs from its junction with the A36 at Whiteparish (near Salisbury) in the county of Wiltshire, follows the south coast of Hampshire and West Sussex, and terminates at Pevensey (near Eastbourne and Bex ...

from Worthing to

Chichester Chichester () is a cathedral city and civil parish in West Sussex, England.OS Explorer map 120: Chichester, South Harting and Selsey Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – Southampton B2 edition. Publishing Date:2009. It is the only ...

, at grid reference TQ 102056, to the northwest of Worthing. It also lies within the

South Downs National Park The South Downs National Park is England's newest national park, designated on 31 March 2010. The park, covering an area of in southern England, stretches for from Winchester in the west to Eastbourne in the east through the counties of Hamp ...

next to

ancient woodland In the United Kingdom, an ancient woodland is a woodland that has existed continuously since 1600 or before in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (or 1750 in Scotland). Planting of woodland was uncommon before those dates, so a wood present in 16 ...

Titnore Wood Titnore Wood is an area of ancient woodland to the north-west of Worthing in West Sussex. With neighbouring Goring Wood it forms one of the last remaining blocks of ancient woodland on the West Sussex coastal plain. Since 2006 land in and aroun ...

Architecture

The building has a front and rear of different styles. The north side of Castle Goring is

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

and is thought to resemble

Arundel Castle Arundel Castle is a restored and remodelled medieval castle in Arundel, West Sussex, England. It was established during the reign of Edward the Confessor and completed by Roger de Montgomery. The castle was damaged in the English Civil War a ...

to the west, while the south side has a Greco-Palladian front of yellow brick, said to be a copy of the

Villa Lante Villa Lante is a Mannerist garden of surprise in Bagnaia, Viterbo, central Italy, attributed to Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola. Villa Lante did not become so known until it passed to Ippolito Lante Montefeltro della Rovere, Duke of Bomarzo, in the ...

near

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

has described Castle Goring as "the most complete example of the 'carnival-style' of the era". As the building has always been in private ownership, little is known about the interior. There is known to be a glass dome in the centre of the building, above a spiral staircase. The building's owners do not welcome visitors and relatively few photographs of the building exist in the public domain. However, in 2016 the present owner,

, allowed the interior of the building to be extensively filmed and shown in an ITV documentary, ''Lady C and the Castle''. On 7 January 2017, the castle's interior and exterior were also shown when Lady Colin Campbell was a subject on the ITV show '' Through the Keyhole''. Further views of the interior, including the glass dome which is said to be the oldest in the UK in a private home (and in need of extensive renovation) were shown in an episode of '' Salvage Hunters'' on

Quest A quest is a journey toward a specific mission or a goal. The word serves as a plot device in mythology and fiction: a difficult journey towards a goal, often symbolic or allegorical. Tales of quests figure prominently in the folklore of e ...

in 2017.

History

Castle Goring was designed by John Rebecca for

. The building was the first of several that Rebecca designed in the

Georgian era The Georgian era was a period in British history from 1714 to , named after the Hanoverian Kings George I, George II, George III and George IV. The definition of the Georgian era is often extended to include the relatively short reign of Will ...

around the then fashionable resort town of Worthing. Sir Bysshe Shelley's son, Sir Timothy Shelley, preferred to live at Field Place near

Horsham Horsham is a market town on the upper reaches of the River Arun on the fringe of the Weald in West Sussex, England. The town is south south-west of London, north-west of Brighton and north-east of the county town of Chichester. Nearby to ...

. It was intended that his son,

, would live at Castle Goring; however, the poet drowned in Italy aged just 29, so he never took possession. In 1825, Sir Timothy Shelley let the building to Captain (later Vice Admiral) Sir George Brooke-Pechell, 4th Baronet of

Paglesham Paglesham is a village and civil parish in the north east of the Rochford Rural District, Essex. The parish includes two hamlets of Eastend and Churchend, which are situated near the River Crouch and ''Paglesham Creek''. It is part of the ''Roa ...

, lord of the manor of

Angmering Angmering is a village and civil parish between Littlehampton and Worthing in West Sussex on the southern edge of the South Downs National Park, England; about two-thirds of the parish (mostly north of the A27 road) fall within the Park. It is ...

, who was Liberal MP for

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

from 1835 to 1860. In 1845,

, who inherited the building as widow of the poet, sold it to Brooke-Pechel. Brooke-Pechel's daughter, Adelaide, married Sir Alfred FC Somerset, who was Deputy Lieutenant for

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...

and

Justice of the Peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or '' puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the s ...

for Middlesex. Their daughter Gwendoline married her cousin, Arthur W Fitzroy Somerset, who held the same offices for Sussex. Aside from a period in the 1870s and 1880s when the property was let to the Burrell family, the property remained with the Somerset family until 2013.

is the current owner.

The future

By the start of the 21st century, the future of the building had looked bleak. Castle Goring had been left to decay to the point that it was on

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked w ...

’s

Heritage at Risk Register An annual ''Heritage at Risk Register'' is published by Historic England. The survey is used by national and local government, a wide range of individuals and heritage groups to establish the extent of risk and to help assess priorities for acti ...

, which described its situation as "very grave". Historic England described Castle Goring as being of priority category A, its highest priority. It was defined as at "immediate risk of further rapid deterioration or loss of fabric; no solution agreed". Structural surveyors working on behalf of

Worthing Borough Council Worthing Borough Council is a district council in the county of West Sussex, based in the borough of Worthing. The borough council was created in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972 out of the existing Worthing Municipal Council, which also ...

tried, unsuccessfully, to gain access to the building several times. A full survey of Castle Goring was finally carried out in July 2003, using the council's legal powers to gain entry. The report was completed in January 2004 and set out details of the repairs considered necessary to "retain the architectural and historic importance of the building and sets out a timescale over which the repairs should be carried out". It is known that an evaluation study was carried out for a golf resort within the castle estate. However, it was not clear whether the building itself would have been renovated under the scheme. In 2010, Castle Goring and its estate was included in the

. In 2013,

purchased the property and in November 2015, she said that she had decided to be a contestant on the popular television show '' I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!'' in order to pay to replace the castle's roof. The

reports that consent for change of use to a wedding/conference venue has been granted and repairs to the roof, stairs and structural timbers have been carried out. It is now priority category F.

References

External links