National Trust vs English Heritage

Evening all.

I'm not sure what's happening to me. I drive a Volvo estate, I wear a green weatherproof coat, I have a beard, and I increasingly find myself visiting castles and country estates and posh gardens.

It used to be that every once in a while we'd visit such places, seldom enough that it was more cost effective to just pay for a day ticket on site. Now I'm thinking it might be worth getting family membership of one or the other.

I'm not sure I want to fork out for both. If you had to choose just one or the other, which would you choose?

 

Sorry clue I don't have a clue is this any help?

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/...l-Trust-v-English-Heritage-Which-is-best.html

 

it would depend on how far everything is to make the best use off that would be my first thought. Get a map decide how far you are prepared to travel and then draw a circle see what you have available , I use that when buying a house.

I find Country houses boring and much prefer the gardens which are full of life not like a old house which looks just full of times gone by , I look at it as everything thing has its day even houses.

Spruce

 

Never joined either so cant help, but just to pick up on what Spruce said.

I tend to wonder how they decide on what era in time to freeze the buildings and gardens in.

 

Having worked on a lot of both EH & NT sites & properties, I chose NT above EH for the following reasons.

NT properties usually have working Gardens, they are family orientated and have regular events/themes.

There are lots of NT car parks around the coast that I can now use for free, there's 3 along a short stretch of the Dorset coast that I use and I did save on parking in Devon and Cornwall too.

NT do a single parent family membership

EH would be fine for me, but the kids would find the sites a bit boring, EH look after the buildings but the gardens are just usually strimmed grass.



English Heritage (Muchelney Abbey)



National Trust (Tintinhull)

More than saved the subscription fee this year alone already.

 

What my parents (and I've discovered, several of my neighbours) did/do is ..... have a look at who 'owns' which property (these days you can Google it), then decide which of those you might visit in the coming year and then in Year 1, for example, join the NT and in Year 2 swap to EH.

The thing I've found with both organisations is that, whilst their list of properties and gardens are undoubtedly impressive, they're often widely spread out and there are few that I'd want to visit more than once so, unless I'm prepared to travel miles and miles (an expense in itself), I'd go, initially, for whichever of the two offers the most in your area.

On a purely personal level, I can't actually stand NT properties mainly because of the staff (usually the blue-rinse, twinset and pearls brigade) who I find, are often officious and frequently down-right rude - but that's just me.

 

As far as we are concerned when you have seen one Victorian/Edwardian interior you have seen them all, so we rarely go inside the NT houses. Agree with Fidget's Mum about the staff at some of the houses.
However we live close to three fantastic NT trust gardens which we visit at least once a month for much of the year. (Plus others where we go less frequently). We reckon that after 4 visits to Bodnant gardens everywhere else is free (Pensioner's ticket).
So do the Maths.

 

When you go into Dunster Castle, the lady on the desk always points behind you and tells you to start the tour down the bottom.

Last week I pointed the other way & told her we want to go that way She was quite shocked.

 

Thanks all.

I'm probably leaning towards National Trust, but I'll research who looks after what before I finalise my decision.

I'm not too bothered about looking round the inside of old stately homes. Its more gardens and castle ruins that we like. The lad loves running about exploring all the nooks and crannies of old ruins, and I must admit I do too. Wife just likes walking around somewhere scenic.

We went to Mount Grace Priory yesterday for example:
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/mount-grace-priory/

Which is an English Heritage site. It was good, there were lots of nooks and crannies to explore.

 

Our daughter loved scrambling around English Heritage ruins, but found more preserved National Trust stuff boring (and still does).

And you can use Tesco Clubcard Points to buy English Heritage membership http://www.tesco.com/clubcard/deals/product.aspx?R=385

Having said that, Corfe Castle used to be one of her favourites to visit which used to be NT, although in those days when we visited Tesco Clubcard Vouchers could be used at 4x cost against entry charges, sadly no longer the case.

 

How did I know you were going to mention Clubcard points before I clicked on this

 

Cos, since buying a new greenhouse and renewing our RAC membership last year, I've still got all these points!



And that's just on one of our three accounts, so we're well on the way to another full week's canal boat holiday for next year as there should be 3 more mailings of points this year.

 

How much do you have to spend at Tesco to earn that little lot Scrungee?