I thought National Trust were child and dog friendly places?

[copernicium]

Visited a NT property and feel quite put off visiting again...

"Move those children away, they are wild animals you know" (even though adults were standing much closer) ... I did give the man the benefit of the doubt on safety grounds even though I didn't see an issue.

But then we tried to enter the area allocated for picnics at 11:54 - to be told we couldn't enter before noon with a dog.

Ok fair enough, so we snuck up a corner to let DC eat a sandwich sitting in the pram - to be told no picnics allowed.

So then we go and hover near to the picnic area, to be told to move the dog away from the entrance until noon. It must have been 11:59 by now.

Finally, time to enter the "picnic area" - to be looked up and down, this time at the dog and the lady said quite abruptly "is that what you call a short lead?" It's a 90cm lead, and nowhere in the admission details is this mentioned. She was trying to turn us away from the area because of the length of the dogs lead. Finally won that argument and allowed to pass.

By this point DC are very hangry so we pass through to the picnic area as quickly as possible, for a lady to stop us and say DC must move to the centre of the path in case they fall on the flowers and ruin them. They were walking quietly and sensibly, holding our hands, with no hint that they might suddenly run or fall on the flowers.

I know it was only a few comments, but it just felt like I couldn't do anything right all day, and that DC and dog were both very unwelcome. Arm I going to regret having membership?

Drives me mad tbh, we've got loads of places around us but very few are dog friendly so it's very limiting.

Considering a change next year.

I mean, I do understand the wild animal issue really, but if this was the case, then shout at the adults that were 10/20 feet closer than we were...
I wouldn't have even thought to have a moan if it was just this one comment but it just felt we couldn't do anything!

We went to one NT place whether they didn't seem to have ever seen a child before 😄🙈, but we've been to lots of others that have been completely fine.

^where!

@BrilloPaddy is this on experience they aren't dog friendly, or on the website? I checked that all our local ones are dog friendly, but now I'm worried they won't be in real life, even though the website says so.

Is this DM per chance? The no dogs before 12 is the most ridiculous rule!

Well if dogs aren’t allowed in till noon then they can’t let you in until noon exactly. When I’ve worked at tourist attractions the managers can be difficult about things like that, and also if you let one person in at 5 to, when do you cut it off? I wouldn’t complain about that, I would just shrug it off and arrive at the correct time.

The animals comment may have been because they were worried your child would get hurt, or it may have been snippy - hard to know without the tone.

Also, you can get opposite complaints. For example, say another family have a member who is allergic to/frightened of dogs - they plan their picnic to end before 12 as they know dogs aren’t allowed in before then, just to find a dog is allowed in before the allocated time. They would then have the right to complain as the policy isn’t being followed. The flowers thing sounds annoying but I would have just said don’t worry they aren’t near the flowers and brushed it off.

What breed of dog do you have? Just wondering if you have a scary looking one that they didn't really want in with the families in the picnic area. Otherwise it is plain strange for them to get on like that.

Definitely email them. We had a similar experience at a local NT property with our children. In one area where handling was positively encouraged, the volunteers were amazing with our children - encouraging exploring etc. In another area, even though our children weren't touching anything, the volunteer was getting visibly more tense and practically barked answers to the odd question they asked.

We did write to that property and let them know of our experience - the good as well as the poor - and got a fairly decent reply acknowledging that perhaps some of their volunteers were less friendly around children but it was not their intention to discourage visitors.

Needless to say, we have not been back to that property but have been rather more successful at English heritage sites. I think the smaller the NT property, the more difficult we have found it. We also have 2 send dc as well, so we always feel like we are being judged anyway.

We chose EH over NT, because they let dogs in to more places. The rest of it you wanted to eat before 12, can't get worked up about.

The wild animal thing I'm guessing you mean swans or geese - they'd do more damage to small fingers.

This happened to us at Strawberry Hill. Newly reopened in the early 2000s, and went with well behaved primary age children to show them something wonderful in their locality (paid good money too) and were made to feel very unwelcome. Awful.

I have previously managed a reasonably large national trust property, some of these seem pretty heavy handed. Lots of the time it’s pretty difficult to wrangle volunteers.

It is however so difficult to manage some national trust visitors and their expectations.The property I managed only allowed picnics in certain areas only and certain parts of the grass couldn’t be walked on. What people didn’t see was the groundsmen on their hands and knees every morning repair patches of grass by hand, spending hours cutting the patterns into the grass. I’d spend all day asking people to not eat outside of picnic areas, not to go into private residents gardens/houses, keep dog on lead, not pick flowers from flower beds, not go behind the rope, not to feed the horses etc. It does get a little exhausting.

@Kanaloa well they need to have different eating areas then - they are basically saying a child with a dog cannot eat until after 12...
The tone of the man was a horrible, nasty, patronising shout.

But that’s their rules. It’s not up to them whether your child can eat before 12, they don’t allow dogs in that area before 12. A bit annoying, but you could be aware and feed your child before going, as you won’t be able to eat before 12. They have to cater for everyone, and some people may want to eat without dogs nearby. After 12 seems reasonably for lunch picnics to me.

If the worker’s tone was unpleasant then that needs reporting, but not because of their rules about when the dog can enter the picnic area, because his customer service is poor and it will spoil people’s experience of a supposed ‘treat’ of a nice day out.

You could have given your child a snack anywhere. 12 is plenty early enough for lunch.

If his tone was rude then that's not OK. But the rules apply to everyone.

What an awful experience. Are they for real?! Definitely complain.

I don’t think National Trust properties should allow dogs at all. Deer and dogs don’t really mix.

It sounds stressful. But surely even though most annoyingly hungry child could wait four minutes if that is genuinely it was?

Never really had massive issues with NTs but some were a little nuts during lockdown visits....

One way systems OUTSIDE with loads of room everywhere to avoid others were the worst 😂

@littleducks and then an argument about how long the lead was, then having my membership card scrutinised, then having to walk to the other side of the gardens to the very specific picnic area - having another telling off for being too close to the flowers...I was just praying DC didn't then decide they needed the toilet miles away

I don’t think you should have been close to the deer with your dog. They actually are wild animals and prey animals too.

I work for the National Trust and was a volunteer for several years beforehand.

Please email and complain the regional customer services or the property itself and tell them what happened. There is a huge drive for properties to be much more family and dog friendly than in years gone by, it sounds like the one you visited is missing the mark.

I'm assuming that the people who you have mentioned were volunteers rather than staff? It's quite difficult to wrangle volunteers at the best of times, some can have quite odd ideas of what is / should be allowed (in both directions!) and an actual complaint, where at the very least the volunteer manager can brief the volunteers that a visitor has said x and y happened, and that's not ok, and what should have been done differently can make a real difference.

In the unlikely event that what happened was justifiable then at the very least you'll get an explanation for what seem like quite bizarre rules.

I can totally see why picnics might be restricted to certain areas, but if you're going to do that then I can't see why on earth you would then restrict access to the picnic area - the obvious result of that is people will picnic outside of the designated area!

I’ve had this too visiting a NT property with a dog. Starting with being told at the entrance that we needed to get back in the car and drive to a different car park with a different gate before we could come in. Everyone I came into contact with behaved as though I was trying to lead a large cow through Sainsbury’s rather than trying to walk a small dog on a lead in a wide open space that had been specifically advertised as suitable for doing exactly that.

Our closest one has a massive deer park next to it, occasionally during the rutting season a stag will wander down into the carpark and try to assert his authority with lots of strutting and bellowing, a nice bloke, in a little NT green vehicle, turns up and shoo's him away. I always imagine the stag writing a strongly worded letter to The Telgraph signed, disgusted of Studley.