If you go down to the woods today you'll be in for a big surprise. Tanya Weaver reveals just what that surprise could be.

Deep in the unspoilt woodlands on the Sussex Downs you shouldn't be shocked to stumble across a giant pair of bronze hands, a grinning fish riding a bicycle or a striking bare breasted woman with multicoloured arms. No, this is not a film set for the latest Hollywood blockbuster on dreamscapes it is in fact the work of Glynn Williams, Steven Gregory and Allen Jones - some of Britain's best known artists - displayed in the 24-acre grounds of the Cass Sculpture Foundation on the Goodwood Estate near Chichester, West Sussex. Here over 70 large-scale sculptures appear in clearings on a winding route through trees, complemented by the changing scenery of the woodland that envelopes each piece. Set up by Wilfred Cass and opened in 1994, the Foundation's aim and consistent focus is to advance British sculpture and promote it to a global audience.

Known as a philanthropist, serial entrepreneur and long-standing patron of the arts, Wilfred Cass is a spry 82-year-old who was born in Berlin and comes from the famous Cassirer family, a branch of which established a well-known gallery in Berlin in the 1890s and brought Impressionism to Germany. Cass has had a distinguished career in electronic engineering and management, highlights of which include setting up Image Bank UK with his son in 1979 (which was successfully sold to Getty Images in 2001) and in 1987 he joined Moss Bros Plc as Chairman and Chief Executive and successfully reorganised the troubled group.

The Cass Sculpture Foundation's aim and consistent focus is to advance British sculpture and promote it to a global audience.

From retiring from Moss Bros in 1992, Cass and his wife moved to West Sussex from London to the Goodwood Estate. He had every intention of quietly settling into retirement in the beautiful grounds however, with a youthful glint still left in his eye this was never really on the cards.

Having lived in their new home for just over a year, Cass peered out of the window at the few pieces of sculpture they already owned - including an Elisabeth Frink and Henry Moore - and asked himself this question: 'Are we going to keep collecting sculpture in a casual way and have the whole lot split up at auction when we die, or shall we try something more ambitious?" The result was they packed their bags and spent the next year visiting some 30 sculpture parks in Europe, North America and Japan before deciding upon the style, aim and design of their own estate.

Something they did notice on their travels is that a great deal of British sculpture exists outside the borders of Britain. They also learned that successful artists don't give their best work to sculpture parks and only loan the pieces they can't sell. If they wanted the best, they would have to commission it. So, together they co-founded the registered charity, The Cass Sculpture Foundation (previously known as Sculpture at Goodwood) in 1994 to promote and advance British sculpture. Having invested some £7 or £8 million of their own fortune into the venture, within a year of its conception, it was open to the public.

Each artist is encouraged to break new ground, to experiment with new materials, to take an imaginative leap forward in the creative process.

Over the past 12 years, the Foundation has commissioned more than 160 large-scale sculptures from over 120 British artists including Antony Gormley, Anthony Caro, Gavin Turk, Richard Wentworth and Richard Long. It commissions between 10 to 15 new large-scale sculptures each year, funded by the sale of previously commissioned works. This is how Goodwood differs from other outdoor sculpture venues such as the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and the Chiltern Sculpture Trail, which do not sell work and are grant maintained.

Cass explains that they ask the artists to develop pieces that they have never done before - something that may have been in their minds for many years, but that nobody has ever before dared to put money behind. In the introduction to Sculpture at Goodwood: A Vision for 21st Century British Sculpture, a book published in 2002 in celebration of the first ten years, Sue Hubbard explains: "With extraordinary generosity the fabrication costs are met in such a way that sculptors are freed to create monumental and ambitious works that would previously have been beyond their financial reach. But monumentality is not all. Each artist is encouraged to break new ground, to experiment with new materials, to take an imaginative leap forward in the creative process. It is estimated that within a decade there will be 200 works in existence that would not have been conceived, let alone realised, if it had not been for Goodwood. Each year around a third of the works move to new venues, thus making way for a new generation of commissions and casting the seeds of British sculpture in a number of far-flung locations."

Not only is the sculpture commissioned solely from British artists but all the pieces are ultimately sold - remaining at the Foundation for an average of just three to four years. Prices vary and can range from around £10,000 right up to £500,000. "Because we receive no public money, we basically pay for a piece to be made and than halve the profit with the artist, so half of it goes back into commissioning another piece," explains Cass.

It has been argued that woodland is not the ideal setting for the display of sculptures as it is not showing them in the surroundings in which they will eventually 'live'. "When we started people were talking about site specific but it doesn't seem to make a difference," says Cass. "If a piece is good it will work anywhere if the quality is there and the ideas are original enough." However, displaying the works in the open spaces, and something else that sets the sculpture park apart from others, is that these monumental works are given space in which to breathe. Cass believes this is critical as too many sculpture parks are cluttered. "If they are too close together you can't read them," he explains. The number of pieces are always kept the same - 52 in the main grounds and an additional 14 in the 'Chalk Pit'.

"it takes an awfully big carrot to coax me into the countryside, but I can't recommend a visit to Goodwood strongly enough"

In April 2005 the Cass Foundation, in order to commemorate its tenth anniversary, unveiled the Chalk Pit - a landscaped space of white chalk walls and trimmed grass banks created specifically for solo shows of sculpture. The first artist to have his work displayed in it was Tony Cragg, whose run was extended to November 2007 due to its popularity. Born in Liverpool in 1939, Cragg has lived in Germany for nearly 30 years and, despite winning the Turner Prize in 1988, his work is probably more celebrated in mainland Europe than in Britain. The display was the largest exhibition of his outdoor sculptures in Britain to date and included several large sculptures produced specifically for the Cass Sculpture Foundation. The £1 million exhibition lured critics and the press into the woodlands and received some favourable reviews for the exhibition and the estate. For example, Richard Dorment, The Daily Telegraph's art critic, exclaimed in an article published in May 2005: "It takes an awfully big carrot to coax me into the countryside, but I can't recommend a visit to Goodwood strongly enough."

Although the exhibition has brought some much needed exposure for the sculpture park, Cass still wants more people to come and see the works. "People have just woken up to an interest in public art and good public art but sadly, for the moment, not many people know about us," he laments. He is hoping that the Foundation's new purpose built centre, designed by Studio Downie Architects, will give it "international visibility." Up until February 2006, the foundation operated out of offices in the Casses' home but the new building will now enable the Foundation to give a much larger audience access to the unique and rapidly growing educational archive charting the development of 21st Century British sculpture. Along with the archive, the centre also houses a library, research centre, gallery and conference space. Cass hopes that the conference facilities will be used for major sculpture events but also for non-sculpture conferences, perhaps by bankers, accountants or town planners - all of whom will inevitably be exposed at the same time to what the Foundation does.

Cass's efforts to have his Foundation and grounds to be the "home of 21st Century sculpture" has not gone unnoticed as last year he received a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) for 'Services to Art'. He is modest about the achievement and says, "I still haven't quite got used to the shock. But it's good for the foundation and will help attract even more international recognition for British sculptors."

The Cass Sculpture Foundation reopens after the winter months on 27 March 2007.

Article by Tanya Weaver, first published in issue forty-seven
(January 2007) of New Design Magazine.