The National Trust

We had problems finding Kedlestone Hall and were told that the NT don't like to have too many signposts; ditto Mr Straws House (nearly gave up on that one but thankfully didn't). Have also noticed that a lot depends on the input of the volunteers. Sudbury Hall had lots of photos in various rooms, put together by a volunteer who we spoke to. We found South well Workhouse totally lacking in information (OK; there was a bit). The only furniture was left over from a TV programme. We were told that they preferred people to use their imagination, but mine wasn't switched on that day. One house (Sudbury I think) gave us a card that you could get stamped and after so many stamps you got a free cup of coffee, but I don't think all properties are in the scheme or if it's still going. As NT members on the cheap, a free cup of coffee is sometimes enough to get us to make another visit. It's also frustrating that some places have reciprocal agreements with English Heritage and others haven't (but I guess nothing can be done about that). Which has made me realise that it's time I went to Lindisfarne again....

We always love seeing the gardens, particularly the vegetable gardens. It's always nice to buy some vegetables, freshly picked.

We like the lunches but some cafè/restaurant facilities could be expanded as we have often queued outside at some this year.

It is always good to see the improvements that are being carried out - at one large NT property near us we could even view the roof from above as it was being replaced!
We have visited more than once to see the changes, unfortunately once on an 'Open Day' by mistake - it was so busy we were not allowed in the house.

I can't walk so far sometimes so those golf buggies are always appreciated, along with benches to be able to sit and appreciate the gardens.

We like to learn the history of the properties and the surrounding areas too and some volunteers are very knowledgeable.

The website is eady to use.

However, membership fees have gone up quite a lot since we joined, presumably we are told in the renewal letter - must check more carefully!

DH says, as we pay quite a lot for membership (good value if we use it) he does object to 'begging letters' asking for more contributions for their latest projects.

Joined in may (with an offer code)
We try to go to one every 2 weeks
(I have DGC commitments rest of the time).
We started with the closest to home first.
The book and also the local info we get by post from NT has been helpful to plan excursion as the give opening and closing times parking etc as well as information about the property and gardens.
If the weather is nice then we will choose ones with nice gardens and outside space for a picnic.
We have also found that sometimes a return visit is required as time runs out and you are unable to visit the inside and out in one day.
Due to having to use crutches for the last 2 visits I found that there was usually benches close to the property but not many if any further away from the buildings.
It would be nice to be able to sit down and take in the surroundings as you wander around.
I have not really explored the web site so am unable to comment.
We are spending a long weekend in Somerset at moment and DH has planned our trip around some NT properties.
So far the membership has been very worthwhile and we have probably visited enough now to say 'we are now back in pocket '
We have chosen a couple of NTs to visit later on this month that have apple events &/or autumnal trees
We will also revisit some local NTs on the lead up to Xmas for their crafts & decorations.
In the future we hope to take our GC to some of the ones we have visited that provide children friendly areas and activities.
All the tearooms have been very nice and staff friendly.
The guided tours are interesting and there has been plenty of seats inside to take a rest on whilst I've been hobbling around on my crutches.
The NT volunteers like yourself do a great job without them the NT would not function.

I was going to suggest more benches, but it seems there is not much scope and
I can't see what is wrong with a plaque in someone's name if they loved a particular spot.
www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/in-memory-and-celebration

I joined the Scottish National Trust (reciprocal with NT) around 30 years ago. I realise now - very belatedly - that, if I had forked out for life membership at that time, I would have saved myself a considerable sum, though I haven't worked it out yet. When my GD1 and her half brother were little the membership card saved me a small fortune on parking charges at Lyme Park where they loved the play areas and running up and down hills, shouting, 'Come on granny!'. When she was older, we went on many visits and picnics at other properties around Cheshire.

We recently visited Nymans in West Sussex. It was a boiling hot day and it was very busy.

You can't have too many garden benches.

We joined the Scottish National Trust this year although we live in London as it is much cheaper. I paid £47 for DH and myself as opposed to £99 I believe full price at the time.

I think I like the gardens better than the houses as the houses, in general are very much alike.

We went to Powis in the summer and the gardens there were beautiful, the best we have seen.

We go away alot in our caravan in the summer and that is when we get the opportunity to go to lots of NT places.

Our normal modus operandi is to take our fold up chairs and a picnic then get it out where we park the car and eat before going in. We probably have tea and a cake later inside. Last time at Wimpole Hall we decided to eat and have a meal there. What a mistake, the queue for the restaurant was horrendous, we queued for 35 minutes and then had wait for the meal, taking precious time out of our days viewing.
Lesson learnt there, definitely eat before entering.

Our 2nd home is near the wonderful Threve Gardens and more recently, house. (SNT, Dumfries and Galloway)
The restaurant is great, they use much of the produce grown in the walled kitchen garden. The gardens are varied, walled, Japanese, rock with waterfalls and glass houses. It is also a Horicultural college.
They also have many event ranging from open air theatre to night bat hunts. You can also buy plants and some of the excess fruit and vegetables. In the summer we get great value popping in for lunch, to buy produce and spend time looking at the beautiful gardens. Any visitor to us are always taken round the recently opened house.

We've been members long enough to benefit from the retired membership rate and always more than benefit. Ironically visit NT properties less now we have retired as we moved area and there are fewer properties close by. Invariably have a tea/coffee and a snack in the cafe/restaurant, rarely a full meal, most cafes are simply not comfortable enough. Enjoy re-visiting houses we find interesting, the volunteer room guides are usually helpful and informarice but sometimes can be a bit over enthusiastic. Perhaps not always easy to judge who would like the shortened version and who is ready for the full history. We enjoy the properties as much as the gardens, so the trigger for a visit could be either. Particularly like the houses decorated for Christmas. Personally I find the web site gives me the information I need, but sometimes it takes a while to find it. Benches in gardens are essential, to help with mobility issues but primarily just to give somewhere to sit and stare. On a long journey we often use an NT property as a break, coffee, lunch, tea and a clean toilet. The membership is well worth it but we also resent the letters asking for extra donations.

I hate the way the NT have started to patronise its visitors by feeling they have to tell you one particular story of the house at some of their properties and then ask you whether you enjoyed it.
They do not know who I am, what my background is or what I am interested in and I am rarely interested in the story they want to tell.

I also do not want to be accosted by room guides every time I walk into a new room, all, of course, telling me THE STORY. If I want any information I will ask, but nowadays the guides usually cannot help because all they have been told about the house is THE STORY.

I have recently visited Goodwood House, Chichester and Temple Newsom, Leeds, neither NT, both let you look round without bothering you but when asked the guides are a fund of knowledge. The NT used to be like that, I wish it still was.

I do enjoy the more informal approach in many houses, settees and armchairs that can be sat in, dressing up for the children. And I love visiting houses dressed for Christmas.

As room guides we are volunteers, MOnica - I can't think why you would think we want to give up precious free time to be bored rigid just silently being in a room!
I certainly wouldn't volunteer if the role was to be a steward.
I do it because I enjoy meeting people and talking to them about interesting subjects. The day goes quickly - it would drag terribly if we just stood there.
We do appreciate that some people want to be left alone and just leave them to it but if there were too many of them I would give up a volunteering job that I actually love.
We certainly don't have THE STORY - we take the lead from the visitor. That is your time to say what you are interested in. The lovely thing about being a room guide is that you can learn a lot from visitors. I don't say the same to every visitor- that would equally as boring.
I do ask people if they enjoyed the visit if I am on the exit. That is your time to say what you didn't like and there is generally a comment card to fill in. In our property the room guides generally get mentioned for their friendliness and enthusiasm.

I can see your point but the NT relies on volunteers and I can't see why anyone would want to sit silently in a room when they have 101 other things they could be doing that day!

I suppose the group of people I generally go around with, choose a NT property based on we want a stroll sort of day out.

What puts me off?
I kept reading a year or two ago, that management and management style had changed, especially in some properties. They were trying to be funkier?
That has left a bit of a lingering bad taste in my mouth.
So I think perception needs to be changed?
Bad perception can be almost as bad as the real thing.

I think that the age profile a decade or so ago was firmly in the older age groups and the Nt rightly in my view decided to tackle this by addressing children's needs, which is great, with things like Halloween, Christmas, woodland fun, seaside exploration etc. Lovely to see a younger demographic now who will grow to love our countryside and care for it.
Nomads - the nearest to me apart from the South Downs some of which is Nt, addresses so much and does art classes and garden classes etc.
Lunch is always appreciated. They do vary from each property which is good

The thing I object to is the two tier pricing system. I am a member so it does not bother me personally but when I went to a NT property with a friend she was automatically charged the higher price which seems to include an extra 'voluntary' donation. Hardly voluntary if you are automatically charged it. No doubt if you do notice and ask for the lower charge you are left feeling rather mean.

NYMANS!!!!

Since we have moved south I miss Baddesley Clinton. I want to move in there. A fabulous, romantic moated grange.

Like Leticia I am a volunteer room guide at Sudbury Hall which was mentioned above. I was interested in the photos which were mentioned as having been there 7 years I don't recall having seen them!?
I completely agree with Leticia, we only talk to those who want to talk: You can tell who they are, and take the lead from what they are looking at. My OH and I also do tours.
There is no "story".
However we have now been told we must all finish at the end of this month and there will be no room guides next season.?

Sorry...not sure how to edit! The first sentence should read...Like Leticia I am a volunteer room guide. I work at Sudbury Hall as mentioned above.

I think they were downstairs in a sort of billiard room granoftwins. My daughter had said she was disappointed with the Museum of Childhood, which I don't understand as I was captivated by it (not having been since my kids were small). We did a lot of properties in a short space of time last year so may be getting places mixed up though). I love chatting to the volunteers. We spoke to one at another property and ended up having a tour of the whole place and learned so much! We enjoy the outside film screenings at places like Calke although it does depend on the weather.

Letittia, I do appreciate the room guides and often speak to them because they can be funds of knowledge, I do not float through the rooms like a ghost but, generally, I expect to initiate the contact. Recently I have experienced what I can only describe as a determination of the NT to tell one story at a venue, regardless of whether it interested me or not and send me a questionnaire afterwards to ask, not whether I liked it or appreciated it, but whether I had been aware of it and understood it.

The most egregious example was Nunnington Hall in Yorkshire. The story was all about one generation of the family who lived there in 1900, in whom I had no interest. There was only a passing reference to things that interested me, like the major work done to the house at that time by a famous architect, the house was full of needlework; quilts, bed hangings, wall hangings that got no mention, and that is just two of the things I can remember, there were others. In each room I entered the guide stepped forward and started telling their tale about the family whether I wanted it or not. I did find one guide who knew about the quilts but no-one had any information about the architecture, nor was there anything in the Guide book other than a statement that the work had been done and who designed it.

It is just having visited the two non-NT houses I mentioned and enjoyed it so much more because the guides were not intrusive but ready to talk, discuss, or find out information they didn't have, if you spoke to them. We overran our time at Temple Newsom because the Guide was so good and had such a wide knowledge of the house and its collections.

Lucky enough to live near Stourhead so visit frequently.
Love lots of the NT's new ideas including timed, themed guided tours; well-informed guides (Petworth/Stourhead particularly....); a more relaxed approach (listened to an impromptu performance on a grand piano when a room guide invited a young man to 'try it'.); restoration of gardens; gentle restoration (where this is more appropriate)of rooms; plant sales; NT shops on-site (including 'tea shoppes'). I suppose this indicates that I am a big fan!

P.S. I realise that they are not all new ideas!
PPS listened to an amazing story told by a guide at Snowshill, he did warn us that it was a long story and we didn't have to listen, we stayed, we listened, it was a performance and we enjoyed it.

I love the fact that people are now allowed to touch some things. We went to one recently (I can't remember which one, we are always in them!) where there was a piano with a note on it which read 'please feel free to play' Also a couple of years ago a Japanese artist did some paintings of NT properties, in Japanese style. We bought a painting by him of the Birmingham Back to Backs where my DH used to be a guide. It is wonderful and the artist signed it for us.

I know what M0nica means - at some properties the Story has been about one particular generation and the life of one person rather than a general history of the property which could be centuries old.
We asked a room guide some questions at a Welsh property and she apologised because she knew nothing about other periods other than The Story of one owner.
One exception to this slight 'grump' could be the story of the owner of Snowshill Manor, whose huge collection fills the house.

We visited Montacute House last year and I must say the outside architectural tour of the house was excellent and informative, one of the best guides we have come across.