National trust membership is it a class thing

[candaby653]

Ok so I have never thought about national trust membership being a class thing. I thought of it as a normal thing lots of families have.

However I heard someone in a cafe having a rant about someone they knew, "they have every middle class status symbol right down to the national trust sticker on the Audi"

Is this how people see national trust!

Can I ask please why you'd have a NT membership?
I live in Hampshire and have three young children (5,4,4) and no dogs. Would I want one!?

It’s £11.60 for two of us per month and £10.99 for Netflix, so I think that’s quite reasonable. But of course people have to choose what they spend their leisure budget on. Just because I’d ditch the TV subscription before the days out and dog walk parking subscription doesn’t mean other families would make the same choice.
I mean, DH and I do take the piss out of ourselves for having NT and EH membership

I don't know

I do know that my very Working Class Aunt and Uncle took out, and enjoyed, NT membership for many Years.

We had it, but a friend who lived in Bermuda would sort it for us as it was only £55 a year for a family pass.

I joined the NT in 2021 when my private jet was not allowed to leave England.
I'm certainly not middle class.

You have it because you spend your weekends at NT properties, and membership gets you in free/gets you free parking!

Do you have any NT properties near you? Do you go more than 10 times a year? If so, membership probably makes sense as you’ll save on parking. If you are going 2-3 times a year, usually cheaper to PAYG.

Money has nothing to do with it. You can be as common as muck and have shitloads of cash.

I think it depends where you live- loads of NT properties near us so very good value and there are always activities for children in half term holidays.
it’s car, rather than class dependent imo.

We’re lucky that they have several properties within an hour’s drive of us, plus we holiday in areas where there are more.
They make handy stop-offs on long journeys to holiday destinations. We can drop in to larger places that would cost about £15 to enter, which we wouldn’t do if we only had an hour or so to spend there.
They really upped their child-friendly game over the last 15 years, which was great when DS was younger.
Free car parking for nearest coastal site.

Anecdotally, as I used to be a National Trust property manager, I don’t think it’s necessarily true. We used to get a lot of Mum’s and young children, they’d come to our free toddler groups. Where else are you getting unlimited days out and free activities for £7. Even our local church group costs more than that monthly.

The same for pensioners, a few pounds a month and unlimited things to do.

Definitely not normal here 😬🙈

I think it's a mindset thing.
You can be working class and decide to include National Trust membership in your budget as it's a great place for picnics, dog walks, school holiday days out, and learning about nature and wildlife. When I was growing up my mum always had NT membership for us because we lived near several NT properties. I seem to remember spending half the school hols at one or another.
On the other hand, you can be in a thoroughly middle class job, have pots of cash, have all the trappings of middle class life but just not value the kind of things that NT properties offer, for example wildlife, great walks, social history and heritage and beautiful buildings.
It's like choosing a walking holiday in the Peak District rather than a week in Dubai. Yes, there's a financial and class element but it's more complex than that.

Very true

This is exactly why my mum had NT membership when we were kids in the 80s and 90s. She was a single parent in what would now be a minimum wage job, but she budgeted for NT membership as it was a really cheap way of entertaining us kids in the holidays and at weekend. We lived within about a 20 min drive of several properties so it was definitely worth it.

Definitely a class thing.
With a family it is rather expensive, and when you have run out of local places to visit, only used during a holiday, and then maybe only once.
we could not afford it when our DC were young, and did not visit enough places to justify it.
We later had a couples membership, but gave that up during Lockdown, when we were still expected to pay.
So, I epcedt most people just pay as and when, rather then membership.

Depends where you live too. The national trust has very little round here so you'd have to factor in time and cost to get to any of their places even if you could afford to go/join in the first place. That makes it a relatively privileged thing to do.

It’s not a class thing, it depends on your values and interests (and obviously which area you live in). People spend plenty on theme parks, lapland holidays and other trendy stuff but have no interest in walking, nature, historic buildings (no judgement just what I am observing in my area). personally I would never spend money on a Merlin pass and could easily afford it.

I have a NT membership and love it, it’s fantastic value in my area. Unfortunately most NT cafes are overpriced and food not very nice.

I grew up WC and my parents had RSPB membership instead. I have zero interest in birds but spent many a weekend in a hide with binoculars (this is my parents' idea of a blissful weekend) - NT seems more interesting haha

Oh dear we have the sticker on our...shock horror...Audi!

We are very middle class. Is that such a bad thing?

There are quite a few around us and we probably go at least once a month so it works out much cheaper than most family days out which are often pushing 50 quid. My parents often take toddler to our local one in the week when it's really empty and they prefer it to soft play!

I pay £13 a month for family membership, we have a couple of great places nearby, so we get free parking and entrance. We use it on holiday in the UK too. To go to the one we visit most often ( up to 10 times a year ) would cost us £48 entrance each time if we didn't have membership, which we couldn't afford on a household income of less than 35k.

I was wondering why we hadn’t been sent a sticker for a while.

@Snowdropsareontheirway same here 😂 I wanted a sticker 😂🙈

My mum had an NT membership during my rather working class northern upbringing. We rarely went on holiday, instead we’d take a picnic and be carted around a selection of NT places within about an hours drive (rural living, even the working class need cars sometimes). Membership was less than the cost of a trip away, and better value I guess if you could leverage it during every school holiday. Obviously now I refuse to go to NT on principle as my inner child still considers it a cut-price replacement for a proper holiday.

I don't have Netflix or a TV licence. Not everyone actually has a leisure budget.

We are members. It definitely does seem to attract the John Lewis/Boden brigade- I’d reluctantly put us in that category.

We find it excellent value, rarely go inside the properties but love walking round the grounds and investigating the play areas etc. We live in an area with 2 properties nearby and when on holiday in the UK make a point of finding what there is locally for basically a “free day out”.

its excellent value for our £12 a month for the family which has barely gone up in years. Our local property now charges a fortune if you aren’t members so most people I know are members. I’m not quite sure why the great outdoors and £12 a month makes somewhere middle class though 🤷🏻‍♀️

noted that it’s often pretty hopeless if you don’t have a car. But round here at least you can’t really get anywhere without a car, unfair to single out the NT on that score.