Editing National Trust (section)

==National Trust properties==
As of 2020, the Trust owns almost {{convert|250000|ha|acre km2 sqmi}} of land, {{convert|780|miles}} of coast, more than 200 historic houses, 41 castles and chapels, 47 industrial monuments and mills, the sites of factories and mines, 9 lighthouses, 56 villages, 39 public houses, and 25 medieval barns. Most of the land is farmed, either in-hand or by tenant farmers.<ref name="Annual Report 2019/20"/> The Trust also rents out holiday cottages, which are given a rating of 1–5 Acorns to reflect the quality of the property.<ref>{{Cite web |title=About the Acorn rating |url=https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/holidays/booking-information/about-the-acorn-rating |access-date=10 July 2023 |website=National Trust |language=en}}</ref>

===Historic houses and gardens===
[[File:Barringtoncourt1.jpg|thumb|Barrington Court]]
 
The Trust owns more than 200 historic houses that are open to the public. Most of them are large country houses or stately homes set in gardens and parks. They contain collections of pictures, furniture, books, metalwork, ceramics, and textiles that have remained in their historic context. Service wings are preserved at many houses.<ref name=Houses>{{cite book |first=Lydia | last=Greeves |title=Houses of the National Trust |date=2008 |publisher=National Trust Books |location=London}}</ref>{{rp|6–12}} [[Attingham Park]] in Shropshire, the most visited National Trust country house in 2019/20, is set in typical grounds with a walled garden and extensive parkland planted with trees to the designs of [[Humphry Repton]].{{r|Houses|pp=30–31}} The most visited National Trust property in England in 2019/20 for which an admission charge is made was [[Clumber Park]] in Nottinghamshire, a park without a country house. Clumber House was largely demolished in 1938, leaving a 19th-century chapel as the focus of the park, which also contains a lake with wooded islands, a stable block, glasshouses, and two classical temples.{{r|Houses|p=92}}

The first country house to be acquired by the Trust, the Elizabethan manor house [[Barrington Court]] in Somerset, was bought in 1907 and came in a dilapidated state and devoid of contents. The experience taught the Trust a salutary lesson about the need for endowments to cover the costs of the upkeep of country houses.{{r|Houses|p=7}} The Trust acquired the majority of its country houses in the mid 20th&nbsp;century, when [[Inheritance Tax (United Kingdom)|death duties]] were at their highest and [[Destruction of country houses in 20th-century Britain|many country houses were being demolished]]. The arrangements made with families bequeathing their homes to the Trust often allowed them to continue to live in the property.<ref name="Cannandine">{{cite book|author=David Cannadine|title=In Churchill's Shadow: Confronting the Past in Modern Britain |url=https://archive.org/details/inchurchillsshad0000cann|url-access=registration|date=2004|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-517156-3}}</ref> Since the 1980s, the Trust has been increasingly reluctant to take over large houses without substantial accompanying endowment funds, and its acquisitions in this category have been less frequent, with only two, [[Tyntesfield]] and [[Seaton Delaval Hall]], since 2000.<ref name="Cannandine"/><ref name="Annual Report 2019/20"/> 

[[File:Birmingham Back to Backs exterior.jpg|thumb|Birmingham Back to Backs exterior]]As well as great country houses, the Trust also owns smaller properties, many of them associated with famous people. Examples include: [[Cherryburn]], the cottage in Northumberland where [[Thomas Bewick]] was born; [[Smallhythe Place]] in Kent, home to [[Ellen Terry]]; [[Shaw's Corner]] in Hertfordshire, the country home of [[George Bernard Shaw]].{{r|Houses|pp=6–12, 279}} The home of architect [[Ernő Goldfinger]], [[2 Willow Road]] in [[Hampstead]], London, was the first example of [[Modernist architecture]] to be acquired by the Trust.{{r|Houses|p=340}} In 1995 the Trust bought [[20 Forthlin Road]] in [[Liverpool]], the childhood home of [[Paul McCartney]]; [[251 Menlove Avenue]], the childhood home of [[John Lennon]], was bought by [[Yoko Ono]] in 2002 and donated to the Trust.{{r|Houses|pp=6, 139, 212}} The [[Birmingham Back to Backs]] are an example of working-class housing preserved by the Trust.{{r|Houses|p=50}}

Some properties have individual arrangements with the Trust, so for example [[Wakehurst Place]] is managed by the [[Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew]] and [[Waddesdon Manor]] by the Rothschild Foundation; both are open to the public.<ref name="Annual Report 2019/20"/> In January 2025, it was announced that the Trust had entered into an agreement with Historic Coventry Trust to run [[The Charterhouse, Coventry]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy17wp4nrxo|title=National Trust to run historic monastery building|first=Andy|last=Giddings|date=10 January 2025|work=BBC}}</ref>

===Art collection===
[[File:Rembrandt self-portrait 1635.jpeg|thumb|upright|[[Rembrandt]] self-portrait at [[Buckland Abbey]]]]
Since its founding in 1895, the trust has gradually expanded its collection of art, mostly through whole property acquisitions. From 1956 until the post was removed in 2021, there was a curator of pictures and sculpture.<ref name=Laing>{{cite web|url=http://ezine.codart.nl/17/issue/45/artikel/an-interview-with-alastair-laing-retired-curator-of-pictures-and-sculpture-at-the-national-trust-interviewed-by-annette-de-vries/?id=117|title=An interview with Alastair Laing, retired Curator of Pictures and Sculpture at the National Trust, interviewed by Annette de Vries|publisher=Codart eZine|access-date=21 October 2014}}</ref> The first was St John (Bobby) Gore, who was appointed "Adviser on Paintings" in 1956. He published catalogues of the pictures at [[Upton House, Warwickshire|Upton House]], [[Polesden Lacey]], [[Buscot Park]], [[Saltram House]], and [[Ascott House]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/art-obituaries/7720791/St-John-Bobby-Gore.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/art-obituaries/7720791/St-John-Bobby-Gore.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Obituary of St John Gore|newspaper=The Telegraph|date=13 May 2010}}{{cbignore}}</ref> His successor in 1986 was Alastair Laing, who cared for the works of art at 120 properties and created the exhibition ''In Trust for the Nation'', held at the [[National Gallery]] in 1995–96.<ref name=Laing/> From 2009 until 2021, the curator was David Taylor, who approved photographs of the Trust's 12,567 oil paintings to be included in the [[Public Catalogue Foundation]]'s searchable online archive of oil paintings, available since 2012. Artists represented in the Trust's collections include [[Rembrandt]] (whose ''[[Self-portrait wearing a white feathered bonnet]]'' which is now displayed at [[Buckland Abbey]] was recently re-attributed to the artist), [[Hieronymous Bosch]], [[El Greco]], [[Peter Paul Rubens]], [[Angelica Kauffmann]], and [[Stanley Spencer]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://artuk.org/search/search/search/keyword:national-trust|title=Paintings held by National Trust|publisher=[[Art UK]]}}</ref>

From the 1980s to 2001 the Trust commissioned artists to create works depicting National Trust places with their "Foundation for Art", and in 2009 launched its [[contemporary art]] programme entitled "Trust New Art" in a joint venture with [[Arts Council England]] and [[Arts Council of Wales]]. As part of this programme, the Trust has worked with over 200 artists to create new artworks inspired by their places including: [[Jeremy Deller]], [[Anya Gallaccio]], [[Antony Gormley]], Sir [[Richard Long (artist)|Richard Long]], [[Serena Korda]], [[Marcus Coates]] and [[Katie Paterson]].<ref>''Trust New Art Guidebook'' (2019)</ref>

===Coastline and countryside===
[[File:Worm's Head (Rhossili).jpg|thumb|Cliffs and Worm's Head at [[Rhossili]]]]
The National Trust is the largest private landowner in the United Kingdom.<ref name="Whyte">{{cite book|author=Ian D. Whyte|title=A Dictionary of Environmental History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CjjgfTcONZcC|date=2013|publisher=I.B. Tauris|isbn=978-1-84511-462-6|page=346}}</ref> The Trust's land holdings account for almost {{convert|250,000|ha|acre km2 sqmi}}, mostly of countryside.<ref name="Annual Report 2019/20"/> A large part of this consists of parks and agricultural estates attached to country houses, but there are many countryside properties which were acquired specifically for their scenic or scientific value. The Trust owns or has covenant over about a quarter of the [[Lake District]]; it has similar control over about 12% of the [[Peak District National Park]] (e.g. [[South Peak Estate]] and [[High Peak Estate]]).<ref name="Whyte"/>

Most National Trust land, about {{convert|200,000|ha|acre km2 sqmi}}, consists of tenant or in-hand farms, where public access is restricted to [[Rights of way in England and Wales|rights of way]] and sometimes additional routes.<ref name="Annual Report 2019/20"/><ref name=Coast>{{cite book|title=Coast and Countryside Handbook |date=2000 |publisher=The National Trust|location=London}}</ref>{{rp|5–6}} At [[Wimpole Estate]] in Cambridgeshire, the home farm is open to the public.{{r|Houses|p=344}} The Trust also owns forests, woods, downs, and moorland.{{r|Houses|p=4}} These areas are generally open to the public free of charge, as are some of the parks attached to country houses (others have an admission charge).{{r|Houses|p=6}}

The Trust owns or protects roughly one-fifth of the coastline in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland ({{convert|780|mi}}), and has a long-term campaign, [[Project Neptune (National Trust)|Project Neptune]], which seeks to acquire more.<ref name="Annual Report 2019/20"/>

===Protection of National Trust property===
The National Trust Acts grant the Trust the unique statutory power to declare land [[Restraints on alienation|inalienable]]. This prevents the land from being sold or mortgaged against the Trust's wishes without special parliamentary procedure. The inalienability of trust land was over-ridden by Parliament in the case of proposals to construct a section of the [[Plympton]] bypass through the park at [[Saltram]], on the grounds that the road proposal had been known about before the park at Saltram was declared inalienable.{{r|Acorn|pp=215–216}}

In 2017 the Trust, in spite of criticism by members, supported the government's scheme to build a [[Stonehenge road tunnel|road tunnel]] under the [[Stonehenge|Stonehenge World Heritage Site]] as part of the plans to upgrade the [[A303 road]]. The scheme would involve the compulsory purchase of land held inalienably by the Trust.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/04/national-trust-faces-member-rebellion-backing-stonehenge-tunnel/ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/04/national-trust-faces-member-rebellion-backing-stonehenge-tunnel/ |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=National Trust faces member rebellion over backing of Stonehenge tunnel |last1=Ward |first1=Victoria |date=4 September 2017 |work=The Telegraph |access-date=9 January 2020 |last2=Bevan |first2=Stephen  |issn=0307-1235}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

===Most visited properties===
[[File:The Mansion at Attingham Park.jpg|thumb|[[Attingham Park]] in [[Shropshire]], the Trust's most visited property in the 2022–23 season]]
The Trust's 2022–2023 Annual Reports lists all properties open at charge with more than 50,000 visitors. The top ten are:<ref>{{cite web |title=Year on record - Annual Report 2023 |url=https://documents.nationaltrust.org.uk/story/annual-report-2023/page/21/1 |website=National Trust |access-date=7 July 2024}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! scope=col|No. 
! scope=col|Property 
! scope=col|Location
! scope=col|Visitors
|-
| 1 || [[Attingham Park]] || Shropshire || {{Decrease}} 560,423
|-
| 2 || [[Clumber Park]] || Nottinghamshire || {{Increase}} 558,949
|-
| 3 || [[Dunham Massey Hall]] || Greater Manchester || {{Increase}} 535,455
|-
| 4 || [[Cliveden]] || Buckinghamshire || {{Decrease}} 533,284
|-
| 5 || [[Calke Abbey]] || Derbyshire || {{Increase}} 489,383
|-
| 6 || [[Fountains Abbey]] || North Yorkshire || {{Increase}} 426,770
|-
| 7 || [[Stourhead]] || Wiltshire || {{Increase}} 377,950
|-
| 8 || [[Belton House]] || Lincolnshire || {{Increase}} 372,902
|-
| 9 || [[Tyntesfield]] || Somerset || {{Increase}} 372,546
|-
| 10 || [[Kingston Lacy]] || Dorset || {{Increase}} 366,999
|-
|}