The Duke of Richmond reinvents Goodwood into Woodstock

It's alchemy, you know - it's a magical thing..." Charles March, the Duke of Richmond, is talking about his first love with a respect bordering on reverence.

- Helen Coffey, The Independent

He's best known for putting British motor racing back on the map by launching the hugely popular annual Goodwood Festival of Speed and Goodwood Revival events. But something else stole his heart long before his name became synonymous with heritage cars: photography. The duke “hated school, pretty much” and left at 16 to pursue the only thing that had ever made sense to him. “Taking a picture is a magical process, especially in the old days,” he tells me, misty-eyed from the family seat of Goodwood Estate in Sussex. “You had your film, you developed your film, and in the dark you'd see this wonderful thing appearing in front of you. And you'd just hope you'd got it right.”

There's an appealing romanticism about this vision of photography as it was, before digitisation: a miraculous chemical reaction turning light into printed image. Though the modern era has robbed us of much of this sorcery, the duke’s enthusiasm for the medium remains undimmed. At the age of 70, he is showing his latest exhibition, entitled Sandscript, at Hamiltons Gallery in London until 16 January 2026 (more on that later). It probably didn't hurt that his introduction to the industry was the stuff of legend; at the tender age of 17, Charles landed a gig shooting stills for Stanley Kubrick.