Goodwood

Drive south from Midhurst on the A286, up over Cocking Hill and down through Singleton, and in about nine miles you arrive at Goodwood — the Duke of Richmond's estate, which over three centuries has developed three quite separate claims to fame. Depending on the weekend, it is a racecourse, a motor circuit or a stately home; on the biggest weekends of the year it is all three at once and half of England seems to be heading there with you.

Goodwood's racecourse sits right on top of the Downs, and its own publicity calls it the most beautiful racecourse in the world with some justification — the track curls along the ridge with the Solent glittering beyond. The flat season runs from spring to autumn, and the high point is the Qatar Goodwood Festival at the turn of July and August, still known to everyone as Glorious Goodwood: five days of top-class racing, linen suits and panama hats. An ordinary summer evening or Saturday meeting is a cheaper, gentler way in, and no less lovely. Book tickets in advance for the big days.

Down the hill, the wartime airfield became a motor racing circuit in 1948, and today it anchors the estate's two enormous set pieces. The Festival of Speed, each July in the grounds of Goodwood House, sends everything from pre-war Grand Prix cars to current Formula 1 machinery blasting up the hillclimb past the front door. The Goodwood Revival, each September at the circuit, is a full-dress time machine: historic racing with the whole crowd in period clothes, and worth attending once in your life even if you cannot tell a Cobra from a Cortina. There is also the Members' Meeting in spring, and on many Sunday mornings through the year the circuit hosts themed classic-car Breakfast Club gatherings — check the Goodwood website and register ahead. Aircraft still fly from the aerodrome in the middle of it all, which only adds to the effect.

Goodwood House itself opens for tours on selected days, mostly in summer — check dates before you go. Inside is one of the great English private art collections, including celebrated paintings by Stubbs and Canaletto. For the best free view on the whole estate, though, climb the Trundle (St Roche's Hill) above the racecourse: an Iron Age hillfort with a car park just below the summit, a ten-minute walk up, and a panorama that takes in the racecourse, Chichester Cathedral's spire, the harbour and, on a clear day, the Isle of Wight. Skylarks sing over the ramparts all spring and summer, and it is a superb spot to watch race-day crowds from a serene distance. On the way there or back, stop at the Weald and Downland Living Museum at Singleton — fifty-odd rescued historic buildings reassembled in a downland valley, familiar to many as the home of television's The Repair Shop.

• Traffic — on Festival of Speed, Revival and Glorious Goodwood days the A286 and A285 crawl. Leave very early, or better still treat those days as your cue to walk the heaths instead and visit Goodwood midweek.
• Tickets — the big three events sell out well in advance; ordinary race days and Breakfast Clubs are much easier.
• By bike — fit cyclists can ride from the estate over Cocking Hill to the racecourse in about an hour; it is a proper climb but a memorable approach.
• Dogs — fine on the Trundle and the surrounding downland (on leads near sheep); event days and enclosures are not dog territory.