National Trust chief hails attraction's soaring visitor numbers

Dame Helen Ghosh paid tribute to the work done at Attingham Park as she opened the attraction's new reception building.

The country house at Atcham, just outside Shrewsbury, attracted more than 466,000 visitors in the 12 months up until February, making it the third most popular paid-for National Trust property in the UK.

Ten years ago the figure was just 154,000.

Dame Helen said the country house and park at Atcham, just outside Shrewsbury was also able to attract such a wide audience.

"It's got everything," she said. "There is this wonderful historic park, this fabulous house, and all the heritage and conservation work that is going on, it's got a lot of everything."

Attingham Park general manager Mark Agnew said the new reception area was necessary to cope with the extra visitor numbers at the attraction.

"When I first came here 11 years ago, we hoped that one day we might get it up to 205,000 visitors, so it has exceeded all expectations," he said.

"We expect the visitor numbers to keep on growing, most of our visitors are members, and we speak to people regularly about what they want, and we work very hard to deliver that."

A new cafe and restaurant is also due to open this week as part of a £3 million revamp, meaning that hot meals will be available for the first time.

Mr Agnew said: “This has been the biggest project we’ve undertaken to date, and is vital to the future of Attingham.

"As a conservation charity, we rely on income and support from our visitors to care for and conserve Attingham, and our previous facilities were no longer fit for purpose.

"The new visitor reception and Carriage House Café mean we’ll be able to offer visitors a warm welcome and a larger and improved café to relax and refuel during their visit.”

He said one of the future challenges would be to ensure the fabric of the site was protected given the increased number of visitors.

"We have stopped running the special events that we used to run, like the food fair and the Christmas fair," said Mr Agnew.

"As long as it is mainly dog walkers and light users, it should be sustainable."

The new extensions are around the Stable Courtyard, a grade-two-starred listed monument designed by George Steuart at the main mansion house in the 1780s.

The historic nature of the buildings mean that conservation and use of the courtyard have been carefully balanced. Bricks from a demolished toilet block on the site, along with carefully chosen reclaimed bricks from a building supplier, have been used to blend the rear kitch en extension with the existing fabric of the courtyard.

During the work, an historic stable floor dating back to about 1900 was uncovered. This was carefully recorded, taken up, and re-laid to form part of the floor in the new Carriage House Café.

Marketing officer Flora Holdsworth said the majority of people who came to Attingham were repeat visitors who knew their way around the site, and the new reception area would allow them to enter the site more quickly.

The cafe and restaurant now has seating for 150 people indoors, with a further 220 seats outside.

Attingham Park was built in 1785 for Noel Hill, 1st Baron Berwick, who received his title in 1784 during the premiership of Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger.

Hill was a politician who aided Pitt in the restructuring of the East India Company. He already owned a house on the site called Tern Hall, but with money he received along with his title he commissioned the architect George Steuart to design a new and grander house to be built around the original hall. The new country house encompassed the old property entirely.