National Trust/English Heritage

[babyOcho]

Are these worth joining? Which is better?
Are there any others?

I have English Heritage. Got annual membership with my Tesco vouchers. It is good if you holiday in the UK or live near a lot of their sites.

I think I would probably prefer NT as there are more of their properties near me but they don't do the Tesco voucher thing

Just been to Carisbrokke Castle and Osborne House this week and they were both excellent.

I have NT membership - seems to have more properties than EH although EH are probably more impressive.

NT is very nice for bit of stroll and a slice of cake.

quidco have good cashback on NT at the mo ....

Been members of NT for Scotland for many years. It's cheaper than NT for England, and you can still visit the same places.

NT has more land (owns large tracts of Lake District, coastal areas etc) plus stately - and not so stately homes. It is a membership organisation and the members have a vote in its policy decisions.
English Heritage is some sort of quango (was once part of a government department) and owns more castles and ancient monuments.
Also, NT covers England & Wales and Northern Ireland and has reciprocal arrangements with Scotland whereas English Heritage only covers England.

Thanks, was swaying towards EH as I've always wanted to go to Eltham Palace‎. But it's not even that close to us!

I think the 30% from Quidco has finally swayed me.

Historic Houses Assocation [http://www.hha.org.uk/] has homes that are still in private hands often very interesting - you can join as a member as well. Going on places I have visited I would go with NT or HHA over EH (although they have some unusal properties). But hey if I could afford memberships for all I would do it as I love nothing more than a castle, stately home!

In the past I would have chosen EH over NT as I associated NT with being stifled with pure linen tea towels. But my ILs gave me NT membership this year for my birthday - it's been fantastic already. The NT has definitely changed. Last week I was sitting on a lawn at Waddesdon Manor thinking that this was pretty close to heaven.

Depends a bit where you live.
We're in SE England and have had both for the last year, as we joined EH to go to a couple of specific properties (Darwins' House and a Roman Villa IIRC...) However we probably won't renew EH as there aren't so many places in the SE... lots of ruined castles etc in the North though...

I love NT though, and it's really good for when you just need to get out of the house without spending £30... that's if you can avoid the tea shop and gift shop... (take a picnic and steer the kids away very expertly)

We're members of both. Both are great - a year's worth of days out for less than a day at a theme park - but the cake is better at the NT!

Depends where you are - we are in East Kent and nearest NT houses are a day's expedition for us so not used as often as our EH membership as we often take the kids to Walmer Castle or Dover Castle just for a couple of hours so definitely worth it for us!