English heritage or national trust?

[Wellthisiscrapeh]

Dh and dd birthday are on the same day, this year PIL want to get us all something we can use and have offered a national trust or English heritage yearly pass so we can have some cheap days out.

I’ve got so much horrible stuff going on at the moment, I just can’t think, which do people think are better?

We are in the West Midlands, (Black country) and have a car.

Thank you.

Option C: National Trust for Scotland. All the access to National Trust places but for a bit less cost.

We have both, but there are far fewer EH sites.

Besides visits to them on purpose, we’ve sometimes made a diversion on a long-ish car journey to eat at a NT cafe, rather than at the motorway services. Much more pleasant - if you’re not in a tearing hurry!

NT sounds like the best bet.

From google there seems to be a few places nearby.

We have NT ones are fortunate to live in a 45 Mon drive of 4 large ones. We also regularly holiday in the uk and use NT as a stop of point where possible rather than a service station.

EH needs your money more. It's a very new charity (2015) and looks after sites that nobody else will and that lose masses of money. The NT will only take on properties that come with a large endowment to pay for their upkeep.

@StrawberryPot

EH needs your money more. It's a very new charity (2015) and looks after sites that nobody else will and that lose masses of money. The NT will only take on properties that come with a large endowment to pay for their upkeep.

Maybe it's not always been constituted as a charity, but EH has certainly been around for a lot longer than that.

We use EH as when we go on holiday it gives us loads to do with the kids.We recently used it to get into Edinburgh castle as we're renewal members we didn't have to pay for the tickets.

It's definitely one to have if your fan of castles.

Check how many properties each has within your acceptable travelling distance. NT seem to have more generally and are still acquiring.

@ErrolTheDragon

Yes there has been an organisation looking after the national collection for decades. At one time it was the Ministry for Works, then the DoE, then the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England. HBMCE also went by the more user friendly name of English Heritage. But all those organisations ran on public funding. HBMCE/the old EH was an NDPB/quango.

In 2015 a new charity was created - with a one off lump sum from government and the aim of becoming self sufficient by 2023. It kept the name English Heritage because it was so strongly associated with the sites, but is altogether a different beast.

So while the name English Heritage has been around for a long time (since 1984 actually), the current organisation has not - and is struggling with the financial impact of Covid (site closures = loss of income).

We live in Manchester which, apart from Lyme Park/Dunham Massey is a void on both EH and NT maps. I was an NT member solely to go and hang out for (almost) free in Lyme Park grounds on Sundays before I met DH. Who is a castle freak and takes us to N Wales a lot. With his EH membership

I have both but where I live, I'd say EH is better value for money as they have more sites round here and it also gets you in free (after your first year) to places in Wales under Cadw and some in Scotland (possibly the Historic Scotland sites? I know Edinburgh Castle is one). You can also have (I think) up to 8 children on your membership. Lots of ruined castles on EH plus a few stately homes.

We are in the Midlands. We have NT. Lots around with a bit of a drive that's worth it especially if you are willing to go for a long walk, they are only small houses. We've found NT handy when we go away.

We eventually gave up with EH because they are all quite far away and we couldn't justify the membership price.

NT for me - was bought as a Christmas gift last year.

So many more sites near me plus relatives have NT memberships so we swap them around.

@StrawberryPot

EH needs your money more. It's a very new charity (2015) and looks after sites that nobody else will and that lose masses of money. The NT will only take on properties that come with a large endowment to pay for their upkeep.

1984. Although basically there are two halves and the bit now called EH is newer. Same thing though.

Hmm just realised there's a second page! I seem to have found different info from a pp though. Look on the Historic England site.

West mids is much better for national trust than east mids. I love national trust but may not renew my membership as just so few around me and kids have out grown it - may just renew for myself as I'm the only one who enjoys going still ! We always ended up either travelling to lincs or west mids way

We have NT as the sites near us tend to have playgrounds where the EH ones don’t and we have a young DC.

We have both but definitely use NT more ( SE) . The NT definitely stay open more , most of the EH places near us including large ones like Dover Castle have only been open weekends for much of the winter whereas all the NT places have been fully open and we go more during the week .

I came on to write that the National Trust is a charity and English Heritage a branch of government, if that makes any difference to your thinking. However I checked and the government separated the National Heritage Collection and Historic England (which deals with listing of properties etc.) and the former is now a charity too.

Probably should have said I'm a NT member. Where I used to live there were loads of NT properties in day trip range; not so much where I live now, but I've had my money's worth over the years. Joined EH one year because of holidaying somewhere (Northumberland) which had quite a few EH properties, then spent the rest of the year trying to visit as many other EH properties as we could, but didn't renew it.

@StrawberryPot

EH needs your money more. It's a very new charity (2015) and looks after sites that nobody else will and that lose masses of money. The NT will only take on properties that come with a large endowment to pay for their upkeep.

EH didn't become a charity until it had made a profit.

NT do now insist that any new donations of property have to be self-funded but that is a relatively recent rule. They still have all the old big, expensive to maintain houses and collections which were transferred to the NT in lieu of death duty, and have to raise the funds for those each year. They have also broken this rule on occasion in order to save something of national importance.

Obviously both charities have suffered immensely under Covid so I don't know why you think one will have suffered more than the other.

@zonder - it's not the same thing. The previous organisation was an NDPB, operating on public funding. The current organisation is a charity, no longer in receipt of public funding.

EH didn't become a charity until it had made a profit.

Completely untrue!!! The government doesn't let publicly funded bodies build up a profit!

NT do now insist that any new donations of property have to be self-funded but that is a relatively recent rule.

Also untrue! The NT has always refused to take on properties without a substantial endowment to cover their upkeep.

Obviously both charities have suffered immensely under Covid so I don't know why you think one will have suffered more than the other.

Because one charity has massive reserves; the other doesn't.

We're NT. We're in a NT and EH blackspot but certainly make up for it if we have a weekend or week away.

@StrawberryPot
"In 2011, for the first time, the national heritage collection made an operational surplus. In other words, instead of costing money to open it to the public, a small surplus was made. Thanks to these successes the government agreed that it would provide £80m to English Heritage if it transferred the national heritage collection to a charitable trust."