Almost 400 members of the National Trust–chosen by ballot from thousands who had applied—attended the body’s annual general meeting today in Newcastle’s Brutalist Civic Centre.
There was no brutalism on display from delegates: how could there be at a meeting where the voting technology’s test question was on the correct accompaniment to an Earl Grey tea—the beverage was named for a local Georgian aristo—and where it was announced that members across the land had voted overwhelmingly in support of offering vegan scones at Trust cafés?
The Daily Telegraph may decry today’s National Trust as “woke” and liken its bloc voting system to one that would make a North Korean blush, but the overwhelmingly white, middle-class audience was about as far removed from the newspaper’s fantasies as possible.
Patriotic case in point: the Trust’s director general, Hilary McGrady, updated delegates on a 2017 public appeal to save the White Cliffs of Dover, which raised $1.3 million in just three weeks.
“That remarkable effort meant that the Cliffs could finally be restored,” puffed McGrady.
“Today, the land made famous by Dame Vera Lynn is filled with wildflowers and the sound of skylarks.”
Note, skylarks, not bluebirds. Bluebirds are not native to Britain, a fact unknown to the American writers of the supposedly quintessential British song first sung by Dame Vera Lynn in 1941.
Today, another American chairs the National Trust’s board of trustees. René Olivieri told delegates in Newcastle that as a school child in Oregon, he had learned of the importance of the Magna Carta, signed at Runnymede, near modern Slough, and its role in establishing the principle of equality before the law.
“That landmark event had huge ramifications for civil societies right around the world, down to the present day,” remarked Olivieri, explaining how the Trust staged Runnymede Explored earlier this year, which “breathed new life into this historic site.”
“I was invited along to see it for myself, to be immersed for an afternoon in the deep pool of British history,” he recounted.
Rule of law
This far into the AGM and still no sign of a North Korean heist, possibly to the disappointment of the Daily Telegraph journalist covering the event. But wait, there’s some radicalism afoot.
“It wasn’t just the Magna Carta story I explored,” revealed Olivieri. He also applauded the Forest Charter, sealed in 1217, two years after King John signed the Magna Carta.
This lesser-known law re-established some rights of access to the royal forest that had been eroded by King William the Conqueror and his heirs.
The Charter of the Forest, as it’s more usually known, “recognized that nature should be available to and enjoyed by all,” said Olivieri.
Celebrating foundational British jurisprudence that cemented trial by jury and the rule of law seems pretty unwoke to this observer, although historians would quibble that the right to nature was more for the barons rather than the general population at the time.
Moving on to matters less likely to be contested by culture warriors, Olivieri updated members on the saplings grown from Hadrian Wall’s Sycamore Gap Tree, cruelly felled in September 2023.
This tree, 35 miles west of Newcastle, “has long been an emblem of the North East of England,” stated Olivieri, “but as we discovered after it was illegally felled, it resonated with people much further afield.”
“Thousands felt a deep and personal connection to this magnificent tree,” he continued.
“It was the backdrop to countless marriage proposals, reunions, happy holidays, and meaningful conversations.”
Earlier this year, new shoots had emerged from the stump, he reported.
“What’s more, we are now passing a piece of living history onto many different towns and cities by distributing dozens of saplings grown from this beloved tree.”
Active travel
At last year’s AGM, members asked the Trust to improve access to its properties by means other than cars.
“We know we need to make our places more accessible and we’ve taken on board your concerns about walking and cycling infrastructure,” said Olivieri.
“We’ve since learned that 20 million people live within five miles of a National Trust visitor property, so we’re now working with partners such as Sustrans to help identify new routes and make accessing these places easier.”
Resolutions passed at this year’s AGM—in addition to the vegan scone one—included asking the Trust to strengthen its response to the climate and ecological emergency, carried by 63,251 votes for, with 13,866 against.
Also carried, by a similar margin, was a resolution that the Trust should support the scientist-drafted Climate and Nature Bill, which gets its second reading in parliament on 24 January next year.
Director general McGrady told members present in the Civic Centre, and thousands watching online, that 2024 marks the end of the Trust’s current 10-year strategy, which, she said, had been an “important roadmap for our work.”
“We are delivering our ambitious plan to reach net zero,” she added.
“And we’re on the path to becoming an organization that is truly for everyone.”
Perhaps the most significant task the Trust set itself in 2015, said McGrady, was to begin to restore nature on the body’s extensive landholdings; it cares for 250,000 hectares of countryside and 780 miles of coastline.
“We set an ambitious target of creating 25,000 hectares of nature-rich habitat, an area double the size of Manchester,” said McGrady.
“It required a huge effort by rangers, funders and many partners. And, as of this year, we have met that target.”
The Trust has “ambitious plans to restore nature at scale,” said McGrady.
She added, “we’ve also expanded the range of stories we tell, including working class, LGBTQ+, and ethnically diverse histories.”
This work is woke, assert activists from Restore Trust, a campaign group founded following the publication of a National Trust report in September 2020 about the links between some of the National Trust’s properties and Britain’s colonial history, including connections to the Atlantic slave trade.
McGrady stressed that the Trust’s historians would continue to dig into topics that “have been overlooked for too long.”
“We have highlighted places like Cliveden, home to the first sitting female MP,” stated McGrady, “and unearthed how the fight for suffrage was woven through many of our properties.”
She added that stories like these are part of the rich tapestry of U.K. history.
“We are learning and researching all the time, exploring new perspectives, adding color and depth to that tapestry as we go.”
