National Trust ‘worse than Sixties planners’
THE National Trust has been accused of being worse than “1960s planners” by hiring an architect to rebuild fire-gutted Grade I-listed Clandon Park with a vision of installing new glass walls and a “striking multi-level staircase”.
The Georgian Group is planning to meet the trust today to express its concerns about the architect’s multi-million pound modernist plans to redevelop Clandon Park after it was gutted by fire two years ago.
Christopher Boyle QC, the group’s chairman, said the National Trust’s plans to redevelop the hall, near Guildford in Surrey, “would actually inflict yet further damage upon it with inappropriate modernist interventions”.
He said: “The nearest equivalent is the now-lamented devastation wrought on our historic towns by 1960s planners unsatisfied by the efforts of the Luftwaffe.” Mr Boyle said the group’s meeting with the trust would “start the process of formulating an acceptable proposal” for the £30million overhaul and had been assured that the architect’s plans were not set in stone.
The Earl of Onslow, whose father handed over the 80-room house to the National Trust, also attacked the plans, saying it would create an “exhibition centre”, adding “there are no contents to go in it”. The peer told The Daily Telegraph yesterday: “Why spend £30million on an exhibition centre?”
He said he backed either restoring the house to its former Georgian glory or spending the money on other National Trust properties.