National Trust ‘failing to protect listed sites’
Georgian Group accuses the trust of betraying its members over Clandon Park restoration scheme
THE National Trust is in “retreat” from its duty as the custodian of nationally important buildings because it is embarrassed to own “elite houses”, a leading Georgian heritage body says.
The Georgian Group has attacked the trust after it unveiled plans to rebuild Clandon Park, a Grade I listed mansion which was ravaged by fire in 2015. The 80-year-old group, which fights to preserve 18th and early 19th century buildings, said the plans showed that Clandon Park “looks set to suffer irrevocably” from a trend to make historic houses “accessible and relevant”.
Dame Helen Ghosh, the trust’s outgoing director general, has previously admitted it has alienated “traditional visitors” in the wake of rows over Easter egg hunts, gay pride badges and flapjacks. The trust was also accused two years ago of “dumbing down” its historic properties by stripping out some of the furniture at one of them and replacing it with beanbags to attract more visitors.
Clandon Park, an 18th century mansion in Surrey, was gutted by a blaze in April 2015 that is thought to have been started by an electrical fault.
The exterior of the Palladian house remained largely intact, but 95 per cent of the interior was destroyed, as well as 400 works of art.
Last month the trust unveiled six designs for the reconstruction of the hall which included modernist staircases and suspended walkways. A final design for the £30million restoration is due to be chosen in September, with construction work to start in 2019.
The plans were immediately criticised by an “underwhelmed” Rupert Onslow, the 8th Earl of Onslow, whose family used to own the house. He said the plans amounted to nothing more than “staircases in air”, adding: “I begged them not to put a glass and steel box inside the house so now they’re going to put a postmodern glass and steel box inside the house.”
The Georgian Group has now weighed in, with David McKinstry, the group’s secretary, saying the shortlist of ideas “has given an alarming signal of its intentions in caring for our nation’s built heritage”.
Mr McKinstry told The Sunday Telegraph the proposals “embody a jumbled retreat from the trust’s curatorial duty as custodians of nationally important – in this case, Grade I listed – buildings”. He said: “It is a retreat which many observers believe has been apparent for some time; an embarrassment over the ownership of ‘elite’ houses, a focus on the ‘accessible’ and the ‘relevant’. Clandon looks set to suffer – irrevocably – from a continuation of that trend. The trust is intent on not restoring the building. As the owner of a listed building, that is a dereliction of the duty placed on it by law and policy.
“As perhaps the most prominent owner of listed buildings and certainly the largest ‘heritage’ membership organisation, it is a betrayal of the trust placed upon it by both its members and the nation as a whole.
“The trust’s actions over Clandon call into question the willingness of the organisation to look after that which has been entrusted to its care.”
The National Trust said that the designs were “ideas only, not final plans”.