The National Trust

Question 1

Acres of land owned by the National Trust according to website

Answer 1

Over 618,000

Question 2

Number of National Trust members

Answer 2

4 million

Question 3

transformation into a mass-membership organisation

Answer 3

from 1960s

Question 4

NT established

Answer 4

1894-5, by a coalition of conservationists, including Robert Hunter, who had been active in the Commons Preservation Soicety, the philantrophist Octavia Hill, and the Reverend Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley, a campaigner against railway intrusion in the Lake District.

Question 5

NT original intentions

Answer 5

preservation of threatened buildings and landscapes and therefore the revival of rural life

inspired by John Ruskin’s call for a society to buy threatened buildings and land.

ideal of a simple, Christian peasant society as rooted in the past, and based on a rural and village life

Question 6

Difference in NT approach from that of other conservation organisations

Answer 6

more decisive and interventionist

Question 7

NT early years

Answer 7

focused on acquiring open land and small scale vernacular architecture.

In 1927, after a public appeal, it bought 1,400 acres of land around Stonehenge in order to preserve the site from development.

In its early leadership, and early acquisitions, the National Trust can be read as a conservative response to the challenges of industrial and social modernity in Victorian Britain

Question 8

Challenges to country house survival

Answer 8

Hereditary estates were hit by rising estate (or ‘death) duty. In 1904 estate duty stood at 8 per cent; by 1919 it was 40 per cent and in 1930, 50 per cent

revenues from estates had declined due to agricultural depression

domestic service out of fashion

Question 9

NT 1937 ‘Country House scheme’

Answer 9

NT acquired the ability to take on large country houses

Under this scheme an owner could transfer ownership of the property to the National Trust, subject to the owner providing an endowment sufficient to maintain the property.[2] This undertaking transferred the property permanently to the National Trust. However, the previous owner was still allowed to remain in occupation, subject to allowing a measure of public access (in general, for a minimum of 30 days a year), and thus be relieved of liability to estate duty on the property.

Early period, scheme quite unpopular

Only rly became popular in postwar yrs

Question 10

CHS 1946

Answer 10

the scheme was extended by Hugh Dalton’s National Land Fund, when the government invested £50 million into the acquisition of land for the state

Question 11

WW2 challenges posed to country houses

Answer 11

problems they had already been experiencing during the interwar period were compounded by the economic and physical ravages of World War II, and moreover, by the extensive damage done to many properties when many country houses were greatly damaged by their use by evacuated schools and as military bases

Question 12

NT 1949-54

Answer 12

168 new properties

Question 13

Dalton rationale for Labour govt investing heavily in NT

Answer 13

reserved for ever, not for the enjoyment of a few private landowners, but as a playground and a national possession for all our people.

young people in particular

Question 14

Daily Express article 1953

Answer 14

As shown,
substantial strain of opinion saw the country house scheme as welfarism for the aristocracy, and keeping alive the anachronistic social stratification of British society through handouts. Indeed, as this newspaper cutting implies, while some may have been happy to have seen the preservation of these old houses, they were less happy at the retention of the families on site.

In order to placate detractors in the media such as the Daily Express, there was an attempt to rebrand the country house

* Blue collar populist newspaper
* Rationing still going on
* Br people no interest in preserving u-c
* Working taxpayers shouldn't be supporting aristocrats to stay in great big country houses
* Crit of Conservatives and Labour 4 joining hands under the table to support wealthy
* Wealthy should be more resourceful
* Bit like debate today about inheritance tax
* Polemic

o Written the context of rationing (rationing didn’t end until 1954)
o Read mostly by working people
o Don’t want to be paying for the rich to stay in their big houses when they were struggling and hungry
o Dole for the wealthy 
o Both parties were supporting it
	§ So no one to represent the working people’s view on this
o article stems from late c19th debate
o Country houses were becoming an increasing burden 
	§ Long term debate 
	§ Didn’t just appear post war
	§ Had been a problem for a while
o National trust ‘s place in this
	§ Country house scheme in 1937
		· national trust was allowed to take on the houses instead of death duties
	§ 1953 was when this was expanded
		· Explains some of its context
	§ Working classes shouldn’t be paying to maintain a landed gentry
o Wartime:
	§ Burlington magazine was writing about how to preserve these houses à1943 article
	§ One of the key sources
		· Says that the houses are really important and part of our shared past 
		· Says that if we are going to support the houses as a state, then they need to be opened up to the public and adapted for use
o Labour government
	§ Post war à fairly radical
	§ Expanded the country houses scheme
	§ Why would they support this scheme?
		· Wanted to give more people access to them for leisure reasons
		· Hugh Dalton national leisure fund 1947 - General exam technique:
o Show that you are familiar with the arguments and debates around the country house issue
	§ Then pick apart why the source is taking this particular stance 
	§ Pull the debates in  - 1969 benson report
o Wanted NT to keep growing which would change the balance of power to expand membership and open up NT to the people, rather than just being good for the rich - Destruction of the country house exhibition 
o V and A
o Got a lot of publicity - Need for a middle way between private house and state subsidy 
o Need to use the homes for effectively and bring them into modern life - Homes becoming businesses
o More forms of entertainment  - NT have enormous clout à 4 million members today, more than any political parties - Gilding the acorn à 1995 book, criticised NT  for losing its identity - Good answer would bring all this together and point out that the debate has not been resolved, still rages today - Make sure to include a variety of primary sources
o And don’t feel constricted by the gobbet à if you know the article well, then mention other parts of it
o Show awareness of the wider sources and their context
o Pepper in the names and the references that are relevant to the debate

Question 15

Country Life Magazine

Answer 15

played a vigorous role in promoting the scheme through attempting to rebrand country houses not as the possessions of a small group of elite owners, but rather as a key constituent of national heritage. The magazine declared ‘many of these houses can no longer be regarded primarily as family houses in a continuing way of life, they have come to be recognized as national and historic works of art.’

Question 16

Positive responses to CHS

Answer 16

Lord Montagu of Beaulieu
Palace House opened to public 1952

Montagu was trained in American PR techniques and was uncompromising in his belief that Stately Homes should to be run as businesses along fully commercial lines. In his book, The Gilt and the Gingerbread—subtitled ‘How to Live in a Stately Home and Make Money’—he boasted about the administrative set up at Beaulieu suggesting that it was comparable to any conventional commercial company. [6] The Beaulieu Estate was a great success with the public. In 1967 it was the most visited Stately Home in Britain with just over half a million visitors.

Question 17

Longleat

Answer 17

opened as a safari park in 1966

Question 18

Segment of British elite mourning CHS as symbolic of decline of their influence and privilege in face of new democratic culture of the welfare state

Answer 18

Lees-Milne, diarist and reactionary Tory was secretary of the NT’s Country Houses Committee

1946, Lees Milne mourned a Trust acquisition:

This evening the whole tragedy of England impressed itself upon me. this small, not very important seat in eh heart of our secluded country, is now deprived of its last squire.

Question 19

1960s NT growth

Answer 19

land protected in England, Wales and NI rose from 275,000 to 420,000 acres; historic buildings open to the public from 130 to 2000

visitors rose from under one million to over 2 and a half million, and members from 90,000 to 177,000.

Question 20

1960s debates

Answer 20

tensions between modernisers and conservatives intensified

some e.g. Conrad Rawnsley - argued that the Trust needed to be more focused on the needs of its members and the wider public by improving the access to its properties and by providing more facilities

Many members of the Trust’s council, were resistant to opening up National Trust property further, seeing preservation as more important than amenity value e.g. Chris Gibbs, the Trust’s Chief Agent

Question 21

Benson Report 1968 and impact

Answer 21

sought to explore the purpose and future of the Trust. Published in June 1969

recommendations, perhaps the most significant being that the Trust should enormously increase its membership. The annual subscription of Trust members is a valuable source of income

membership drive was begun to push this up to 200,000 by 1970, and to double its membership by the 1980s. Indeed, the Trust’s membership grows much faster than envisaged, with membership hitting 500,000 by 1975 and 1 million by 1981.

Question 22

Enterprise Nepture

Answer 22

launched in May 1965 with the aim of raising money to acquire for preservation more of Britain’s coastline. This was an attempt to move back towards some of the original radical ideals of the National Trust’s founders which had got somewhat lost within the work around preserving historic houses, and as a way of engaging the attention of the general public in the National Trust’s work.

Question 23

Coastline owned by Trust today

Answer 23

over 775 miles

Question 24

Villages owned by NT

Answer 24

17, e.g. Lacock in Wiltshire

the Trust seeks to preserve the morphological expression of the traditional rural settlement, very much the antithesis of the commuter village which so characterizes southern England. Security of tenure is provided for working people;

The Trust in general accepts the principle of evolutionary change but strongly opposes drastic disturbance to heritage, which it accords higher priority than immediate human convenience.

Question 25

100th anniversary of the NT, 1995

Answer 25

subject to a range of trenchant criticisms, in particular in the book Gilding the Acorn by Paula Weideger. These criticisms again centred on issues of openness and purpose

e.g.

• What has happened to the Trust’s campaigning spirit? (roads, public access)
• The country houses cost too much (£33 million each year + £5 million in restoration costs: Gardens, land and coastline costs £25 million). Would that money not be better spent elsewhere?
Can the poor really afford to visit their properties?

Weideger now criticized the National Trust from a new angle. Whereas previously it had been attacked for being too concerned with the interests of a few aristocratic members, now it was being criticized for being so concerned with the views of the public that it was unable to campaign on any issue. As she declared in the independent: ‘The National Trust seems to stand for nothing more than holding on to the riches it has. It appears to be afraid to stand up for anything lest in so doing it offend someone and lose financial support or future gifts of property.’

Question 26

Burlington magazine, ‘The Problem of the Historic Country House’ (1943)

Answer 26

BM est 1903

* Oldest/longest/ most continuous journal written in Eng about fine arts - aimed at art connoisseurs, art historians
* More educational approach to why we should be preserving country houses
* Treasures for the nation - permeate ideas of who we are
* Written during the war (WW2) - country houses = big part of how we're trying to define ourselves as a nation
* Trying to couch argument in populist terms - everyone's ppl
* Arguing 4 state intervention to preserve buildings - extraordinary
* House taken over by state as posh social housing? Former owners pay money to state but allowed to live on
* More extreme than just national trust - which is private but state-supported
* Alternative solution - transform house into museum. Ones that are really precious/ special could be preserved w contents. E.g. Holburn in Bath - domestic collection. Preserved as museum. Museumification only poss 4 tiny minority. If lack distinction and made into museum just fell into disuse
* 1960s utilitarian times - best way 2 keep buildings alive = by turning to modern-day use
* Interesting bc written in middle of war, anticipating post-war time when will have 2 make decision about buildings

Question 27

MarkGirouard, ‘Country House Crisis’,Architectural Review(1974)

Answer 27

• Professor of fine art at the Slade. Written num of books on evolut of country house
  
  • Writing 4 the Architectural Review
  • Writing in context of exhibition Erica spoke to us about - Destruction of Country House Exhibit
  • Questioning
  • Review of the exhibition
  • Great concern of mid-70s. Oil crisis and dropping shares. No longer sufficient funds 2 maintain great country estate
  • Labour v supportive of country houses (unexpectedly)
  • 70s financial crisis v diff to postwar
  • Response to this - 1974 v and a Destruction of the Country House exhibition - one of most influential exhibitions ever put on. V dramatic display. Designed by Wade - incredible display. V dramatically conceived exhibition, to awaken nation to threat of losing country houses
  • V diff mindset to Daily Express article - these are our heritage
  • Rational for exhibition - few realised scale of loss of country houses
  • Exhibition - queues formed. In last week Queen, Lord Mountbatton, various govt ministers, all visited
  • Falling porticoes
  • Politically - awkward time. Just b4 general election which brought in Labour govt proposing enormous wealth tax which would’ve made holding onto these houses impossible
  • Already social shift around preservation of country houses but still v bold of the v&a to hold its exhibition
  • Mark’s article - all responsible 4 country houses, all need 2 preserve heritage
  • Mark - reaches similar conclusions to Burlington
  • Even if country houses preserved, problem of how they should be used
  • How does one keep them living and relevant?
  • School - but cost of radical change in character and contents
  • Museum - total preservation at cost of total death
  • Radical solution
  • E.g. Mutual Householders’ Association
  • Hard 2 make case in mid-70s for why state shld bother providing subsidies if houses not going to be used
  • Need to think creatively
  • Unlike burlington - no case for state support unless houses going to be used for something

Question 28

PeterMandler, ‘Politics and the English Landscape since the First World War,’HuntingdonLibrary Quarterly(1992)

Answer 28

The history of landscape conservation = a quintessentially political process

NT late-Victorian approach to conservation - making private purchases for public purposes - proved inadequate after the FWW: the price was too high, the challenges too daunting, the State increasingly ubiquitous. So conservationists had willy-nilly to act politically: to recruit a political constituency, to lobby the state, to make choices and tactical decisions

Victorian values remained paramount - Ruskin and Morrise, Arts and Crafts - widest impact came in form of commodities for industrial production and suburban consumption. Handicrafts like basketry and pottery for urban home decoration

Liberal minority took spiritual message of Ruskin to heart

Revulsion from infernal city and all its works

Built environment hardly interested them

Urge to protect open country from the influx of the masses

Identification of conservation with agriculture

Interwar yrs. Fears of conservationists exacerbated - Urban sprawl

Intellectuals’ apocalypticism climax after 1929, when crisis of countryside overlapped w economic and political crisis in cities,
This brought new layer of intellectuals into conservation orbit - Oxbridge aesthetes

Countrified aesthetes even less interested in developing pop following than had been old-style conservationists - Waugh and hist friends wrote off the Ruskin and Morris tradition entirely as a dismal, tasteless popularisation that preserved only the cheap and useful in rural life.

Waugh, Labels, 1930 - defended his ‘detestation of quaintness

Waugh’s classicism offered approach to preservation more attractive than the liberal faddiness then prevalent, causing more country-house owners to take preservationist approach to their homes

This sparked influx of landowners into NT

Mid-30s clearing of crisis atmosphere

Ruskinian currents in early Labour. Incr staunched in fav of bread-and-butter issues

1932 Planning Act - Gave considerable, but still only permissive, powers (and no money) to local authorities that wished to preserve historic districts, regulate traffic and land use, and even to purchase exurban land for recreational purposes. Made poss for the 1st time some fruitful collaborations between urban and rural populations e.g. Herbert Morrison’s green-belt scheme

National Park movement as another sphere of collab between urban and rural

Growing popularity of urban amenity knock-on effect in stimulating urban tastes for rural amenity as well

Planning Act 1947 - virtually nationalized all development land, to permit the measured and rational reorganization of the citiwa

1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act

In contrast to durable postwar welfare state, nearly all of the Labour conservation program of the late forties either quickly dismantled or proved eventually an obvious failure

National Land Fund practically smothered at birth
Principal use in 1950s = to assist NT purchases of country houses. Capital sum cut by 80% in 1958

National Parks Commissions left intact, and 10 of the 12 parks envisaged established, but in name only: no planning controls imposed on the local authorities concerned, and hardly any central govt grant made available for recreational devel

Postwar burst of urban devel revived old conservationist horror at urban life

1953, when central govt grants finally available for preservat of historic builds, these were consciously directed away from cities and toward country houses, windmills, watermills. Little attempt to save town centres

Reopening of gulf between country and city = tragedy for old town centres

Country house business form strength to strength
Access to open countryside probs diminishing, as commercial agriculture moved into woodland, heath moor

Farmers destroyed 1/4 of England’s hedgerows and 1/3 of small woods in 50s and 60s, acc to one critic

Reaction to this debacle began in early 1960s and continues to this day along wide front

Govt turned around from 1963 onward to support recreation in nat parks and new leisure-oriented country parks

1959, £40,000 grant denied; ten yrs later millions being piled on

Urban amenity mvmnt came of age late 60s

Conservation areas date from 1967: thousands were designated in the first decade, and the Historic Buildings Council had its budget vastly augmented to serve them

Veritable mania for the preservation of historic buildings in both town and country since the mid-seventies

Discriminations of the conservation mvmnt meant some things well preserved: country houses, forest, some national parks Other things shamefully neglected or botched: town centres and town planning in general

What had seemed, in the early seventies, to be the start of a multivocal public debate over land use and planning, with a rich variety of interests now properly represented, quickly degenerated into a political paralysis, a lack of any policy now being widely accepted as a wiser or at least safer successor to the misadventures of the fifties and sixties

In place of conservation we need a landscape politics, because the whole of society shapes the landscape, whether conservationists will or no.

Question 29

Georgian Group

Answer 29

1st largely urban preservaitonist body, est 1937 in weak response to such cardinal acts of vandalism as the razing of Nash’s Regent Street

Question 30

Council for the Preservation of Rural England est

Answer 30

1926

Question 31

Cornforth, Country Houses in Britain: Can they Survive? 1974

Answer 31

Study planned autumn 1972 for publication autumn 1974. Main objects = to draw attention to the importance and problems of British country houses in the context of European Architectural Heritage Year

Future of country houses in private ownership is constantly threatened by existing taxation on capital and income

Situation that appears to be developing into a major crisis

Demolition of upwards of 340 notable country houses in England, Wales and Scotland, loss of contents of 40 other houses in England, since 1945

Even more country houses saved from disaster in yrs after 1945 through the recovery of the economy, determination of owners to win through, support of Historic Buildings Councils since 1953, Land Fund, National Trust, development of tourism

Despite apparent success of 1955-65, economy that supported country houses could not withstand additional burden of capital gains tax introduced in 1965 combined w rocketing land values after 1970 and a decline on the stock market

2nd part of study - tries to correct widely-held misconceptions about the resources of house-owners who are also landowners, showing how their nett return from an estate is often well below 1% after tax and how often capital can only be generated by the sale of land that in many cases will reduce the viability of an estate

Tourism alone cannot solve all problems
Most houses not enough visitors to cover outgoings

Conflicting elements of tourism and preservation

Steep rise in repair costs
To meet costs, and provide cash for estate duty, CGT or estate devels, owners may have to look to incr vulnerable collections

Exemption from estate duty less effective defence in face of inflation

NT, HBC, LF coping so far, but certainly couldn’t cope w crisis brought about by measures to be covered in Green Paper

If estates broken up as a result of the punitive combination of existing and impending taxes, 1st victims will be historic houses and their contents. Thus nation will have to bear full cost of anything it wishes to preserve

Vast majority of visitors would regret that the traditional owners had been driven out, and enjoy visit less

1200 houses lost in past century

Surely appallingly iconoclastic as well as economic nonsense to destroy the existing balance - originally envisaged by the first post-War Labour Government and encouraged by its successors - in order to sink a small group of people?

Question 32

Oliver Cox, ‘Review: The “DowntonBoom”: Country Houses, Popular Culture, and Curatorial Culture’,The Public Historian37 (May 2015)

Answer 32

Wilmington, Delaware

At the Winterthur
Museum, Costumes of Downton Abbey, an exhibition of forty historically
inspired costumes from the television show ‘‘displayed and
supplemented by photographs and vignettes inspired by the fictional program
and by real life at Winterthur,’’1 was the most popular exhibit in the museum’s
sixty-three years of public opening

5 Back in
the United Kingdom there has been a surge in visitors to country houses.
According to a 2013 report from VisitBritain, almost one in three tourists who
visit the UK go to see an historic house or castle.

Visit England identifies ‘‘The Downton Effect’’ for a ‘‘revived interest in stately
homes,’’

The real Downton Abbey, Highclere
Castle, home to the Carnarvon Family since 1679, is a Jacobethan
masterpiece designed by Sir Charles Barry.11 The house opens to the public
for seventy days every year and last year was fully booked through advanced
ticket sales.

Robert Compton, the President of the Historic Houses
Association, concludes, ‘‘Downton has done us all a great service because it’s
reminding people about our heritage. It’s bringing history to light.’’

Families lived and loved, thrived and died, often over multiple generations.
Country houses are able to create an emotional link with visitors in a way that
museums find very hard to do with their audiences. However, many critics—
of whom Laurajane Smith has been most vocal—have observed that this is an
emotional link that is only available to a select few

rather than create a new curatorial direction, what Downton
Abbey has done is to accelerate existing trends in the presentation and interpretation
of country houses. After all, showing servants’ quarters is nothing
new. Erdigg Hall was acquired by the Trust in 1973, not for its architectural
importance, or its contents, but because of the existence of extensive sources
about the servants who worked there.26 Since re-opening in 1977 visitors have
entered not through the main entrance into the piano nobile, but instead start
their experience downstairs in the servants’ quarters.

at Ickworth
in Suffolk, the National Trust, beginning in 2010, invested £744,000
($1,198,520) to re-create the domestic service areas.

The question, therefore, of what to do with the collections is the greatest
challenge facing curators, owners, and managers of country houses that open
to the public. In the post-Downton world where human stories and personal
narratives dominate, what role does the art and material culture that comprises
these houses’ collections play?

There are different strategies available: the room guide (the staple and backbone
of the National Trust and other publically accessible properties); the
guidebook, which has undergone a considerable broadening of focus away
from high art towards social history in the past quarter of a century; and
increasingly the turn to digital. This need not be a significant financial investment
in new technologies and software. For many visitors, a simple re-tweet
from a heritage property, or a cleverly crafted hashtag, is enough. This action
breaks down barriers and creates a sense of community and conversation
between the ‘‘provider’’ and the ‘‘customer.’’

we must be careful not to exaggerate the impact of Downton Abbey.
Many country houses have seen a steady decline in footfall over the last
decade. Those that have bucked the trend have been ‘‘those that continue
to take a degree of risk in terms of innovation and diversification.’’

Question 33

Lowenthal on Country Houses

Answer 33

You get a few stuffy critics writing in The Times about Disneyfication, but the
vast majority find it hugely desirable to be able to walk into a country house and
actually sit down on the chairs, and actually handle the books, and actually
participate in something. So what if it’s a replica rather than the real thing?33

Question 34

Gowers Committee

Answer 34

Est December 1948, concerned w fiscal and financial aspects of maintaining this part of the national heritage

Question 35

J. E.Tunbridge, ‘Conservation Trusts as Geographic Agents: Their Impact upon Landscape,Townscapeand Land Use’,Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers6 (1981)

Answer 35

The early years to 1917 show spatial bias in favour of the far south and Cumbria (plus
Norfolk which contained one large property, Blickling). This largely reflects the origins of the
founders and their close associates and benefactors (a south-eastern bias in membership still
persists).’ By 1937 the Trust’s growing status in these areas was augmented by substantial
holdings in recreational areas such as Derbyshire and North Wales.

During the period 1938-1957 selective development continued in the aforementioned
areas, but was augmented by the acquisition of a very large number of stately homes and
gardens, through government legislation favouring donations to the Trust

Since 1957 most of the earlier modes of acquisition have continued, but the Trust has
become more selective in two important respects. Firstly, it is increasingly inclined to reject
donations which are of limited heritage interest or which lack an adequate maintenance
endowment. Marginally-funded cases may be accepted on the basis of quality (rather than
location); but many stately homes needing repair and maintenance at current prices can no
longer be seen as desirable windfalls. Instead, the Trust campaigns for government assistance
to private owners

landholdings were increasing rapidly, albeit selectively, through
1978. The persistent coastal bias was counterbalanced by the acceptance of five large windfall
estates in a variety of inland locations

The great majority of properties (not all) have a recreational function; and in the context
of a ‘leisure society’ it is the distribution of recreational opportunities which is central to the
Trust’s geographical impact, even though recreation is not its prime raison d’itre. Growing
pressure upon its resources has caused the Trust’s approach to evolve, from early passive
preservation to active conservation today. In this context it has recently engaged Wye
College to produce a series of studies on optimal land management in some of its key
properties.

Despite its far-reaching significance, the National Trust is relatively deficient in an
increasingly important field of conservation: townscape and urban land use. It was founded at
a time when the task of conservation appeared to be the salvation of a traditional rural
England from a rapidly encroaching urban wasteland. Furthermore, it has always had friends
in high places and was soon looked upon with favour by the landed classes, who were willing
and able to donate mainly rural properties; this pattern was entrenched by the legislation
which has brought so many stately homes and gardens to the Trust since the late 1930s.
Urban conservation in England is superficially catered for by such bodies as the Civic Trust
(1957), and by the Civic Amenities Act (1967)