NT acting disgracefully over land, claims Bragg

Lord Bragg has called the National Trust’s purchase of land in the Lake District “disgraceful”, warning it could put a farming tradition at risk.

The broadcaster suggested that the purchase of Thorneythwaite Farm, which is home to 413 Herdwick sheep, without acquiring its farmhouse was a “nasty piece of work”. It is not known what will happen to the sheep.

“If the increasingly arrogant National Trust is there to protect anything of our past surely this is a prime example,” Lord Bragg said in a letter to The Times. A Trust spokesman said it believed it could look after the land “in a way that benefits nature, visitors and the local community”.