The guardian of the nation’s treasures
The National Trust is powerful, rich and, for the most part, greatly loved – but in recent years it has been beset by controversy
How powerful is the National Trust?
With five million members – more than all the political parties in Britain several times over – it is the largest conservation organisation in Europe: 24.5 million people visited its properties last year, and an estimated 200 million its land. It owns more than 300 historic buildings (hundreds of stately homes, 41 castles, 49 churches, nine lighthouses, more than 61 pubs and 56 villages) and is the second biggest landowner in Britain, after the Forestry Commission. It has 247,000 hectares and 778 miles of coastline in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (there is a separate National Trust for Scotland). Last year the Trust had an income of £592m.
How did it come into existence?
The Trust was created in 1895 to promote “the permanent preservation for the benefit of the nation of lands and tenements (including buildings) of beauty or historic interest”. Its founders were the housing reformer Octavia Hill; Robert Hunter, a government lawyer; and Hardwicke Rawnsley, a Lake District clergyman. All were philanthropists who believed open space was fundamental for the well-being of the working classes (see box). Within weeks, the nascent Trust was given its first donation: five acres of clifftop overlooking Cardigan Bay in Wales. In 1896, it bought its first building: Alfriston Clergy House, a modest, run-down medieval hall house in Sussex (an oak leaf carved into a beam there is said to have inspired the Trust’s symbol). The National Trust Act of 1907 gave it statutory powers to hold land “inalienably”: it could not be sold without an act of Parliament.
What did the Trust concentrate on in its early years?
Raising money by subscription to buy open spaces. In 1899 it bought its first nature reserve: Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire. The Lake District was a special focus: the peak of Great Gable was donated by the Fell and Rock Climbing Club in 1923 as a memorial to members lost in WWI; Rawnsley’s friend Beatrix Potter left 4,000 acres of land at her death in 1943. But by 1934 it still owned only two significant houses, Montacute and Barrington Court in Somerset. Then its priorities abruptly changed.
What happened in 1934?
Philip Kerr, the Marquis of Lothian and the owner of Blickling Hall, argued at the Trust’s annual general meeting that the steady rise in death duties to 50% spelled “the end of the old rural order”, and that the Trust ought to act as the vehicle for preserving Britain’s decaying country houses. To this end, the Country Houses Scheme was formed, led by James Lees-milne, a well-connected architectural historian. Between 1936 and 1951, he induced many cashstrapped aristocrats to put their family heritage in the hands of the Trust, which is how it came to acquire great houses such as Cliveden, Polesden Lacey, Knole, Petworth, Stourhead and Blickling. Acquisitions continued into the 1960s and 1970s, when the Trust’s focus changed again.
How did its focus change?
Concerned by the way the coastline was being spoilt by mass tourism, the Trust launched Enterprise Neptune in 1965: it sent volunteers to survey the 3,000-mile coast of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, to identify what was worth preserving. Tens of millions of pounds were raised to save some of the nation’s favourite beauty spots, from Whiteford Burrows on the Gower peninsula, to the Needles on the Isle of Wight and the Giant’s Causeway on Northern Ireland’s Antrim coast. Neptune is still ongoing: the Trust recently raised £1m to buy a 700,000m2 section of land adjoining the White Cliffs of Dover.
What preoccupies the Trust today?
The past 20 years have seen another big change in its modus operandi, amounting almost to a cultural revolution. Its notion of heritage has become wider, encompassing the industrial past (mills, mines, foundries, back-to-back houses) and The Beatles’ childhood homes. Country house purchases have been few and far between. And in the properties themselves, stern guides and velvet ropes have been replaced by a more inclusive atmosphere. Children are welcomed; visitors are encouraged to play games and use the facilities. Staff dress up in period dress. But it’s an approach that hasn’t pleased everyone.
What do the critics say?
The art historian Roy Strong has complained that the Trust is “being turned into a branch of the leisure industry”. In the Daily Mail, Max Hastings declared he’d cancelled his membership after 40 years because the Trust’s “traditional priorities of emphasising beauty and heritage have been overtaken by a preoccupation with social engineering and ‘accessibility’”. Under its outgoing director general, Helen Ghosh, the Trust has had its fair share of controversy. It was slated for “outing” Robert Ketton-cremer, former owner of Felbrigg Hall (one of its properties in Norfolk) during a project celebrating 50 years of the decriminalisation of homosexuality; volunteers were ordered to wear gay pride badges, on pain of being put on back-room duties. And it was criticised for dropping the word “Easter” from its egg hunts. Even the Trust’s revised flapjack recipes have come under fire, as traditional flapjacks were replaced with healthier peach and seed bars.
How does it defend itself?
Ghosh accepted that in trying “to welcome the widest possible group of visitors”, they had perhaps left “our more traditional visitors” feeling put out. But Chairman Tim Parker insists that with such a huge membership, and with 10,000 employees and 65,000 volunteers, not everyone can “be happy all the time”. One conflict will come to a head at this weekend’s AGM, when a resolution will be proposed to ban trail hunting with hounds on Trust land; some members complain that it is used to circumvent the hunting ban. The Trust leadership wants legal hunts to continue: Parker maintains that they are “part of the fabric of the countryside”.