A handsome former shooting lodge near Chichester Harbour that is brimming with magnificent features
Unlisted Holt Place is a fantastic Georgian property located in the Chichester Harbour Area of Natural Beauty and is on the market for the first time in 35 years. Annunciata Elwes takes a look.


Not seen on the market for 35 years, Holt Place was once a duck-shooting lodge on the nearby Goodwood estate—sold in 1911—and local rumour has it that a Duke of Richmond once lived here.
Sadly, between the World Wars, it became almost derelict, but it was restored by a builder who had demolished nearby Warsash House, enabling him to install an ornate Italian fireplace, fine panelling and carved bannisters.
The property arrives on the market via Stride & Son with a guide price of £2.95 million.
Today, it has five bedrooms and a swimming pool and comes with a separate one-bedroom flat, two-bedroom coach house and other outbuildings, within two acres that also include a vegetable garden, sunken garden and ha-ha.
Close to the villages of Birdham and Itchenor, within the Chichester Harbour AONB, Holt Place is about 10 minutes’ drive from West Wittering beach and five miles south of Chichester.
Holt Place is currently on the market via Stride & Son with a guide price of £2.95 million — see more pictures or enquire with the agent for further details.
West Wittering: What you need to know
Location: West Wittering is a coastal village located on the Manhood Peninsula in West Sussex. It is an approximately 20 minute drive from Chichester, and a 35 minute drive from the Naval town of Portsmouth. Ferry services are also available to the nearby Isle of Wight. The nearest train station is located in Chichester, offering main line services.
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Atmosphere: The coastal village is a mecca for beach and watersport lovers, and was named one of the best beaches in Sussex. There are several shops within the village, including small independent boutiques, cafes and restaurants.
Things to do: West Wittering Beach is a picturesque spot with long stretches of sand and colourful beach huts. Here, you can learn how to surf, SUP, windsurf and kitesurf . You can also walk from West Wittering to East Wittering.
Schools: West Wittering Parochial Church of England School and East Wittering Community Primary School are both rated ‘good’ by Ofsted, with Birdham CE Primary School ‘requiring improvement’.
See more properties for sale in the area.
Credit: Strutt and Parker
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Annunciata grew up in the wilds of Lancashire and now lives in Hampshire with a husband, two daughters and an awful pug called Parsley. She’s been floating round the Country Life office for more than a decade, her work winning the Property Magazine of the Year Award in 2022 (Property Press Awards). Before that, she had a two-year stint writing ‘all kinds of fiction’ for The Sunday Times Travel Magazine, worked in internal comms for Country Life’s publisher (which has had many names in recent years but was then called IPC Media), and spent another year researching for a historical biographer, whose then primary focus was Graham Greene and John Henry Newman and whose filing system was a collection of wardrobes and chests of drawers filled with torn scraps of paper. During this time, she regularly gave tours of 17th-century Milton Manor, Oxfordshire, which may or may not have been designed by Inigo Jones, and co-founded a literary, art and music festival, at which Johnny Flynn headlined. When not writing and editing for Country Life, Annunciata is also a director of TIN MAN ART, a contemporary art gallery founded in 2021 by her husband, James Elwes.
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