''The Ruined Abbey'' At The Dell To North Of Goodwood House With Attached Tunnel System Including Underground Chamber To North-East And Northern And Southern Tunnel Entrances

SU 80 NE 1080/10/10041 09-OCT-00

WESTHAMPNETT GOODWOOD PARK ''The Ruined Abbey'' at the Dell to north of Goodwood House, with attached tunnel system including underground chamber to north-east and northern and southern tunnel entrances

GV II

Garden feature with attached tunnel system and underground chamber. Circa 1730, for the second Duke of Richmond. Coursed stone, brick and flint, partly ivy-covered at time of inspection (03.02.00). At the Dell, the ''Ruined Abbey'' comprises a round-arched tunnel entrance flanked by narrow stone piers with niches surmounted by re-used medieval crocketed canopies (part-collapsed). The tunnel is stone-lined, but blocked. It procedes eastwards to link with a north-south tunnel which has an underground circular chamber near its northern end and northern and southern entrances. Both entrances are round-arched; the tunnels are curving and mostly brick-lined. The southern entrance is set in a flint retaining wall; the tunnel is lined with flint, becoming brick after approx. 11 metres and with a partly-collapsed flint cell on its eastern side after approx 18 metres. The northern entrance is set in a retaining wall of red-brown brick in English bond and has brick plinths and imposts and a late-C20 iron gate; stone steps lead up at either side. The underground chamber is brick-lined with a blocked central circular roof-light; nine arched stone niches to walls; and a further bricked-up entrance.

The ''Ruined Abbey'' is one of several structures set around the bowl of a man-made amphitheatre and all of which were constructed for the second Duke of Richmond as part of his renowned menagerie. Birds and animals were housed and buried in the tunnel system and associated chambers.

T J McCann, 'Much troubled with very rude company...'. The 2nd Duke of Richmond?s Menagerie at Goodwood?, Sussex Archaeological Collections, 132 (1994), pp. 143-9.

Listing NGR: SU8876109101