National Trust Properties and other National Heritage Sites

• The National Trust is a registered charity that owns and manages many of our finest buildings and gardens. The national trust is a private organisation with well over a million members.
• Its aim is to preserve places of historic interest or natural beauty permanently for the nation to enjoy
• It now owns over 200 historic houses, 230 gardens and 25 industrial monuments plus 240,000 hectares of beautiful countryside and 550 miles of coast
• To join fax them on 0181 466 6824 or join at any National trust property
• Membership gives you free entry to all Trust properties and is about £30 for an individual or £50 for a family
• A selection of its better known properties is:-

  	Oxburgh House, Kings Lynn, Norfolk
  	Ham House, Richmond, Surrey
  	Hardwick Hall, Chesterfield
  	Upton House, Banbury, Oxon.
  	Fountains Abbey, North Yorkshire
  	Tatton Park, Knutsford, Cheshire
  	Giants Causeway, Northern Ireland
  	Petworth Park, Sussex
  	Corfe Castle, Dorset
  	Lanhydrock, Cornwall
  	St Michael's Mount, Cornwall
  	Powis Castle, Welshpool, Wales

• The government through bodies like English Heritage and the equivalent Scottish organisation, administer places like castles and ancient sites
• The government run sites like the Tower of London and Stonehenge
• Somehow these places are not run with the same enthusiasm or commitment as the National Trust properties
• Stonehenge, Britain's only World Heritage site
• The Tower of London, Beefeaters and all that
• The Castles of Cornwall - Tintagel, Launceston, Pendennis, St Mawes and Restormel is a typical county portfolio

• Cromwell, decay and taxation did not succeed in disinheriting all landed gentry, and many buildings are still in private hands.
• Examples are
• Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire
• Castle Howard, North Yorkshire
• Longleat, Wiltshire
• Althorp, Northampton (home of the Earls Spencer)