Singleton and West DeanThe Weald & Downland Museum, West Dean Gardens and the Trundle

Weald & Downland Living Museum

More than 50 historic rural buildings, rescued from where they stood and put up again here. The museum opened to the public on 5 September 1970 on land let at a peppercorn rent by Edward James of West Dean. BBC One’s The Repair Shop is filmed in its Court Barn. Many of the buildings can be gone into, so it works on a wet day.

Adults are £18.75, children £9.75 and under-fives free. Booking online ahead is recommended but not required. Dogs are welcome on short leads.

Winter hours, from 27 October to 23 December 2026, are 10am to 4pm with last admission at 2pm. The museum is closed on 20 and 23 November and from 23 December 2026 to 2 January 2027. The Christmas Market is on 21 and 22 November 2026 and must be booked. Summer hours are longer. Check the museum’s site for 2027.

West Dean Gardens

The gardens of the former home of Edward James, the patron of the Surrealists. There is a 300-foot Edwardian pergola, a walled kitchen garden with Victorian glasshouses, and a 2.5-mile circular arboretum walk through 50 acres of parkland, past James’s grave.

West Dean is open daily: 9am to 5pm from March to October and 9am to 4pm from November to February, closed on 24, 25 and 31 December. Winter entry is £7.95 against £13.75 in summer, and under-16s are free. Dogs are welcome on a short lead, including in the arboretum. No booking is needed except on event days. See plan your visit.

The Trundle

The Trundle is the hill above Goodwood Racecourse, 206 m high, with an Iron Age hillfort on top built over a Neolithic enclosure from about 3700 to 3300 BC. The older earthwork was only recognised in 1925. It is free, open all year and has no facilities. You walk up from the car park and round the ramparts.

It is open downland, so expect livestock and take a lead. On race days, between May and October, the roads around it clog. Check our Goodwood page for dates.

Goodwood Art Foundation and the Centurion Way

If you remember the Cass Sculpture Foundation, it closed for good at the end of October 2020. The site reopened in 2025 as the Goodwood Art Foundation, a non-profit set up by the Duke of Richmond, with indoor galleries and about 70 acres of woodland. It opens Thursday to Monday, and dogs are welcome in the galleries, gardens and restaurant. Adult tickets were £15 in 2025 with under-18s free. Sessions are timed, so book. An exhibition by Ragnar Kjartansson runs from 26 November 2026 to 12 April 2027. We have not been able to confirm winter hours, so check before you go.

The Centurion Way is a traffic-free path for walking and cycling on the old Chichester to Midhurst railway. It now runs 6.8 miles from Chichester to just beyond Singleton, after new sections opened in August 2025. Join it at West Dean or at Lavant, about 9 miles from the farm. The link on to Cocking and the South Downs Way is not finished.

From the farm

A good order for the day: the museum in the morning while children are fresh, West Dean Gardens after lunch, the Trundle for the last of the light. In winter do West Dean first, as the museum’s last admission is 2pm.

With a dog you can do all of it, and Barley Cottage is the one for you. For two couples, Keepers has a bath in each bedroom for afterwards. Our family days out page has more for children.