Castle Goring

Worthing, United Kingdom

Open to visitors

The interior is normally open, possibly ticketed.

Strollie cannot guarantee access — always check before you travel.

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Castle Goring, a country house near Worthing in West Sussex, stands about 4.5 miles northwest of the town centre and represents one of England's most accomplished expressions of 1790s architectural ambition. Designed by John Rebecca in 1797 for Sir Bysshe Shelley, 1st Baronet, the house blends Palladian and Gothic Revival elements in a way that architectural critic Ian Nairn identified as capturing "the equivocal taste of the 1790s as well as anywhere in the country." Although intended as a residence for Shelley's grandson, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, the plan never materialized—he drowned in Italy at age 29 before taking possession. Mary Shelley, the poet's widow, inherited the property and sold it in 1845 to Vice-Admiral Sir George Brooke-Pechell, who had been a tenant since 1825. One of Worthing's two Grade I listed buildings, Castle Goring is deemed of exceptional architectural interest.