National Trust visit spoilt by overzealous staff or AIBU?

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Visited a beautiful NT country house today. Huge 17th century house with Capability Brown landscaped parkland. The house has lots of art by Van Dyck - one of my favourite artists and I was really looking forward to spending a couple of hours with DH wandering around in the beautiful spaces enjoying the peace and quiet. However, every time I stopped to look at a painting one of the staff would come up to me and start talking. This happened several times in every room we wandered into. I totally get the enthusiasm and expertise of the staff but I wasn't really interested in hearing about the Civil War etc., I just wanted to enjoy the paintings in peace. We do visit NT properties occasionally but have never found this to be a problem before.
The staff just seemed to be unable to read my body language as I was trying to walk away or indicate that I didn't want to talk or listen to them by not responding or engaging with them. Short of telling them to shut up it was impossible.
It was a very quiet day with not many visitors so they were probably bored but it was way too much for us.
AIBU by being a miserable bugger (I know I'm quite unsociable at times) or should I be allowed to wander round in peace? Perhaps they should give out 'don't talk to me' badges with the tickets if you want to be left in peace!

When Hull was City of Culture there was an army of volunteers (mostly middle aged people with time on their hands) who swarmed every possible tourist location absolute droves. They had distinctive blue jackets which was helpful because we took to fleeing every time the colour came into view. They were masters at patronising small children (my DC are quite polite but sometimes would be flashing “help me” signals with their eyes) or ineptly explaining something without knowing very much about it.

This exactly! I'm definitely not shy and retiring and can 'use my words' nicely as many have helpfully suggested. But you're right I would feel rude to interrupt and say I don't want to listen to you.

That would have helped! A NT lanyard is not as easy to spot when everyone is wrapped up in coast and scarves 😂

Alan Bennett wrote about this in his diaries. I like the way he puts it (and I feel the same way):

"National Trust guides ... assume that one wishes to be informed about the room or its furniture and pictures, which I don’t always. Sometimes I just want to look and occasionally (18th-century porcelain, Chinoiserie and most tapestries) prefer to walk straight through.

"Sometimes I actively dislike what I’m seeing: yet another table massively laid for a banquet, for instance, or massed ranks of family photos ranged on top of a grand piano, with royal visitors given some prominence.

"Even when I am interested but want to be left alone with the pictures or whatever, I have learned not to show too much interest as this invariably fetches the guide over, wanting to share his or her expertise.

"I know this is bad behaviour and it’s another reason I’ll often come away as dissatisfied with myself as I am with the house."

You are being a "miserable bugger"

Oh my god I was a volunteer for Hull City of Culture and I only lasted two shifts before giving up as the other volunteers were driving me up the wall, so you have my sympathies!

A poster suggested head phones. I was coming on to suggest this too, if all else fails.

Thank you. My DH said this actually, that they really should be trained in body language as it's pretty easy to know if someone is engaging with you or not. And it really shouldn't be up to the visitor to have to bat away unwanted attention a dozen times during their visit.

I've had that, even telling them sometimes doesn't work. I think they must be told to chat to visitors

They will be volunteers, not staff.

Just use your words 'Thanks, that's really interesting. We're just going to have a look round by ourselves now. Bye.' They can't win. Some people want every single detail, some people want to be left alone and some people want them to be children's entertainers (and some want them to treat kids with adults) Just be direct and polite, they will deal with plenty of visitors so they won't mind.

I fear this is the one reason I never want to volunteer as a NT room guide. I would never be able to gauge the right level of interest. But at least I would know my stuff. The last NT place I visited ( and I am a lifetime member) the room guide gave us inaccurate information (think very basic English royal history). My friend was astonished that I knew the detail - but I hadn't wanted to embarrass a lovely volunteer. But I would feedback - volunteers and paid room guides need to know.

You don't need a policy to use your common sense about letting someone stash a pushchair out of rain. I don't expect to be allowed to push it around - I expect them to be able to identify a suitable place to put it.

Most employees with customer service training would go out if their way to help. These volunteers stand there and flap, before inventing policies as to why your common sense suggestion is something they can't allow. That's what I object to.

That's brilliant! Maybe I should put this quotation on a sweatshirt and wear it on every NT visit!

They rarely bother me as I'm always with DC and I assiduously avoid eye contact.

They do always seem to rush towards couples or individuals though and you often see people trying to edge away.

As they're volunteers, they're people with a passion either for the building or for talking with people so it's to be expected, and they will be instructed to approach people.

I live nearby an English Heritage property with some rather fine paintings that I know very well and visit frequently. Every time I go I have to bat away well meaning volunteers who try and tell me the layout of the building, where I can and can’t go, where the cafe is as well as trying to tell me about the paintings. I don’t want to be rude but don’t want to be approached. I think it is fairly obvious I know where I am going from my approach but not to them it seems. It really puts me off going.

We went to our usual NT at Christmas, walked into a room-received a well-worn spiel from elderly gentleman, tried to extract ourselves, had to go back past him to leave, then he got really letchy, thought my husband was my dad 🤣 and kept talking at us. When I said we had to go, he said "I must just tell you this" and proceeded to repeat his opening spiel as he'd forgotten he'd already told us! The kids were "WTF" at me!!
Does put me off even making eye contact with some of the staff when really I just want to look in peace (as much as you can with two kids in tow)

Ooh I feel like I have to sell the volunteers at Brodick Castle on the Isle of Arran here! I've typically found that they make themselves know to you when you enter a room and basically say "shout if you've any interest in any more detail and I'll happily chat but I'll leave you alone for now to take a look about"......perfect!

Be assertive or stand and listen to them - it's your choice.

Big noise cancelling type headphones - they don't need to actually work, just show you're not open to chat!

Definitely feed that back to the NT place you visited - then they can look at giving volunteers the feedback.

Yes, they should have properly trained professional staff, not these wretched people giving up their time for nothing.

of course the entry fee will go up to cover their wages, but that would be much more acceptable.

Even headphones don’t discourage some of them from talking at you!

Worst experience I had of this was at Petworth - they would just not leave us alone and we ended up leaving the house bit much sooner than we’d intended. But a few of them are almost as annoying.

Think I'll tell my lovely mum who gives up her time to VOLUNTEER as a NT room guide not to bother given the comments on here. Clearly people don't appreciate it and just see the volunteers as 'old with nothing better to do'. I'll remind her to not speak to anyone unless shes spoken too in future. Another option is to make them all paid posts and triple your membership / entrance fee...

i went to a place like this last year - absolute nightmare. not sure is it was NT or not.

Best response when they started on a diatribe was "yes, lovely, I'll leave you to enjoy it in peace"

That said, worst place ever to visit is The Hepworth in Wakefield - I've been probably once a year since it open (except lockdown related break) - every bloody time, the assistants/volunteers make so much bloody racket chattering/arguing amongst themselves, a single conversation can be heard from one side of the gallery to the other. I've complained several times.

A few years ago I visited a local NT property (I'd been quite a few times before) and was told off for going round in the wrong direction. Despite there being absolutely no signs saying which direction you should go round in. I was furious and upset, and complained, but didn't even get a response.