The National Trust in Shropshire: Balancing act as popularity booms
You can't accuse the National Trust of being bashful about its popularity.
"We're pretty big," says the National Trust website.
It's not wrong. In November last year the charity announced that for the first time in history its membership had broken the five million barrier. In 1970 the figure was just 278,000.
But while an 18-fold increase in membership is a remarkable achievement in anybody's language, it does present difficulties.
In the UK, only the AA has more members, and it is this growth that has no doubt helped take visitor numbers at Shropshire's Attingham Park – one of its top five paid for attractions – rocket to 470,000.
Chief executive Tim Parker said the figures were a huge vote of confidence in its work.
"That suggests the country's love affair with its heritage and great outdoors has never been stronger," he said.
"In the busy, noisy world we now live in perhaps it's never been more important to escape.
"A visit to a trust property can be a real tonic – you get to see real beauty, not virtual beauty."
The trust has also been hugely successful in getting volunteers involved with its work. In 2013, approximately 70,000 volunteers contributed 3.77 million hours of work, worth an estimated £29.2 million.
But some say the trust's popularity has come at a price. Writer and historian Harry Mount has been a fierce critic, accusing the National Trust of 'dumbing down' in the name of populism.
"The trust is a victim of the national accessibility disease," said Mr Mount. "Partly linked to getting public money, partly to the grand dumbing-down exercise of modern life."
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"Accessibility has never been about regular visitors. It's about desperately luring other people to places they don't want to visit, by destroying those places, by removing the silence and beauty that first made them attractive.
"The desire to appeal to people who don't want to visit becomes all-consuming. The millions who appreciate silence and beauty without signage have their pleasures spoilt, in order to appeal to people who don't appreciate these things."
There is still plenty of victoria sponge on offer at National Trust cafes in Shropshire as well as croquet or badminton on the lawn.
But the Trust has also attempted to widen its appeal, which has not gone down well with some.
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Mr Mount cited a Dracula-themed display in Devon, to mark Halloween, and a Cluedo event at Gunby Hall in Lincolnshire. Eyebrows were also raised in 2013, when the trust decided to open the Big Brother house at the Elstree studios in London.
"The trust owns some of the finest houses, gardens and landscapes on earth," he said.
"But it has damaged them disastrously by drowning them in this commercial Kiddy World, where advertising trumps beauty, desire for money beats facts and political correctness conceals our great history."
Of course, any organisation which sees rapid growth in membership has to walk a tightrope of broadening its appeal while not alienating its traditional membership.
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But the vast increase in visitor numbers creates another dilemma – how to cater for all these extra people without diminishing the visitor experience.
Last year the trust failed to meet its target of 59 per cent of members describing their experience as 'very enjoyable', with 56 per cent answering 'yes' – the lowest rating since 2010 – compared to a high of 71 per cent in 2011.
A spokesman said the 59 per cent target was a "high bar" and added that "96 per cent of our visitors continue to rate their experience as enjoyable or very enjoyable, consistent with recent years."
But he also accepted that rising visitor numbers could have an impact on how much people enjoyed the experience.
He said since 2013/14 the number of annual visitors increased by 23 per cent from 19.9 to 24.5 million.
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"We know that increased numbers of visitors can impact on enjoyment and puts increased pressure on infrastructure, including cafes, car parks and toilets," he said.
The trust has, though, invested millions of pounds into its properties, including Attingham, which has benefited from £3 million worth of improvements, including a new visitor reception and cafe.
At the launch of the new facilities last year, general manager Mark Agnew admitted that one of the future challenges would be ensuring the fabric of the site was protected given the increased number of visitors.
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“We have stopped running the special events that we used to run, like the food fair and the Christmas fair,” he said.
“As long as it is mainly dog walkers and light users, it should be sustainable.”
