National Trust 'Somewhat Stuffy & Middle-Class'

 by
JEFFERY GREEN

"Yes the NT [National Trust] is a somewhat stuffy and middle-class group, which recently found that there was much public interest in the kitchens and servant quarters of the grand houses that it owns.  I think so much is due to that arch-snob Lees-Milne* who negotiated with the financially straightened owners - in Pulborough's Petworth House NT enabling the family to stay in the front portion of the grand house whilst the NT kept up the deer park and permitted visitors to the rear.  They finally allow access to the kitchens.  But they did purchase that Chartist cottage near Bromsgrove and the workhouse at Southwell so slowly the NT became slightly socially aware. 

"Apart from the tracts of land, these grand houses suggest to me the creation of a history that would, say in the case of France, be as valid as one based on the Loire chateaux."

 *  (George) James Henry Lees-Milne (6 August 1908 – 28 December 1997) was an English writer and expert on country houses, who worked for the National Trust from 1936 to 1973. He was an architectural historian, novelist and biographer. His extensive diaries remain in print.

                                                                                                  

**************************