A Noble Thing?

The National Trust evokes a range of emotions and the appointment of Helen McGrady as its new Director-General stirs up some new ones.

Here is her vision: “I want to reach more people, and more people live in urban areas. The days of walking in to one of our beautiful houses and saying a family lived here, that’s not going to do it.

We need to think about what’s relevant – why would someone in the middle of Birmingham say that’s interesting? What is it in Birmingham that they would get more value from?”

Visits to National Trust properties have become grim under a relentless drive to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Sometimes the spirit of a house may be engendered by a knowledgeable volunteer but all too often crass signage, play areas and shops strip ancient buildings of their atmosphere and dignity.

By chance I was lent A Noble Thing, The National Trust and Its Benefactors by Merlin Waterson yesterday. It is a warts and all depiction of a cross section of the Trust’s benefactors and staff over the years. It brings out changes in policy and attitude since the Trust was founded in 1895 exploring the uneasy relationship between donor and recipient. Helen McGrady’s reign will be one more chapter in this continuum.

A Noble Thing, published in 2011, dares to criticise “Saint Jim” Lees-Milne; not for his tact and skill at augmenting the Trust’s portfolio of country houses but for his waspish comments about their former owners, some of whom were still alive when his diaries were published. Other chapters cover familiar ground but also provide fresh aperçus.

I sense that, for now, the pendulum of opinion has swung against the Trust’s management of its properties although its stewardship of swathes of the countryside and coastline does not attract such opprobrium – so long as hunting is not mentioned.