The National Trust

Abstract

THE forty-first Annual Report of the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty for the year ending June 30, 1936, again chronicles a record increase in its work. Two years ago the Council reported a record addition to the properties of the Trust, and although the properties added to the holding this year are less spectacular in acreage, they are more numerous. In the two years taken together, the acreage owned or protected by the Trust has increased by nearly fifty per cent. While it may be concluded that this expansion in the operations of the Trust is an indication of an increase in public interest in the preservation of the natural beauty and historic interest of England, it is unfortunately also a gauge of the rapidity with which the threat of modern development is advancing over the countryside. Although it is true that many properties come to the Trust as the result of private benefaction by far-sighted owners, those which are acquired as the result of public appeal almost invariably are face to face with a threat of early destruction. As the Trust is able under its constitution to acquire and hold properties which are still in occupation, a sphere from which the Office of Works is barred by statute in the exercise of its function in protecting ancient monuments, the work of the National Trust is a very necessary supplement to official action, while the Trust itself is the most important, and in some cases the only, organization through which a national appeal can be launched effectively. It is gratifying to note that the Council is able to report the initiation of a scheme for the preservation of historic country houses and their contents, which adapts to English conditions the main principles of La Demeure Historique for the preservation of chateaux in France and Belgium.