National Heritage

Lately I've been mentioning English Heritage and the National Trust, those 2 guardians of the nation's heritage. What are these bodies?

English Heritage (or the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission) is the government's statutory advisor on the historic environment. It reports to Parliament through the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. It's funded partly by Government and partly with revenue earned from the historic properties under its guardianship. Its aims are:

• to conserve and enhance the historic environment



• to broaden public access to our heritage



• to increase our understanding of the past

The National Trust, on the other hand, is a registered charity and is funded entirely from membership and entrance fees, donations, legacies and revenue from its commercial operations such as publishing and gift retail. It has 3.4 million members and 43,000 volunteers.

It was founded in 1895 by 3 Victorian philanthropists: Miss Octavia Hill (a social reformer and one of the most influential women of the era), Sir Robert Hunter and Canon Herdwicke Rawnsley. They were concerned about uncontrolled development and industrialization.

To date the Trust has 300 historic houses in its care, plus 49 industrial monuments and mills; also castles and islands, gardens and nature reserves, and other countryside areas including forest, fen, woodland, moorland, farmland, downland and the coast. Its aim is:

• to preserve and protect the coastline, countryside and buildings of England, Wales and Northern Ireland

It acquired its first building - Alfriston House (Sussex) - in 1896, and created its first nature reserve - Wicken Fen (Cambridgshire) - in 1899. Blakeney Point (Norfolk) became its first coastal nature reserve in 1912. During the 1930s the children's author Beatrix Potter gave the Trust much financial support; and she left the Trust farms, land and flocks of Herdwick sheep in her will. More recently in 2002 Sutton Hoo was placed under its stewardship, and William Morris's Red House in 2003.

The National Trust for Scotland was set up in 1931.

No Wealth But Life

Tuesday 7 and Wednesday 8 August. I'm denying myself the high fells for 2 days and enjoying some low-level walks. Walk 1: Elterwater - Skelwith Bridge - Colwith Force - High Park - Fletcher's Wood - Elterwater (very pleasant); Walk 2: A circular stroll round Tarn Hows (disappointing, rather tame - it's such a well known, picture postcard beauty spot, but just too pretty and not wild enough for my taste). Also visited Far Sawrey (where a dog was lying fast asleep in the middle of the road), Near Sawrey (busy because of the tourist attraction, Hill Top, Beatrix Potter's farmhouse home), Hawkshead (spoilt by more tourists, gift shops and Beatrix Pottery) and Coniston (not impressed - even if meant partly in jest, this notice in the Sun Hotel car park immediately got my back up: "Freeloaders risk being clamped and are at risk of negotiating release with the rottweiler"). However, though Coniston Water is not my favourite Lake, spending several hours on its eastern shore at Brantwood (see photo), Ruskin's home, was the highlight of these 2 "rest days". John Ruskin (1819-1900) lived here from 1871 till the year of his death. He's buried in Coniston churchyard. One of the greatest figures of the Victorian Age, he was a polymath and eccentric genius. The local Coniston folk looked upon him fondly and called him "The Professor". He was passionate about all things that interested him - which was more or less everything. He was a writer, an artist, a poet, a critic, a social reformer, a geologist, a meteorologist, a botanist, a conservationist, a landscape gardener and much more. He warned of the dangers of factory pollution, fought to improve the working conditions of the city poor, championed the Pre-Raphaelites and was the intellectual influence behind the foundation of the National Trust. He advocated the minimum wage 150 years before Tony Blair. He was a man of ideas but also eminently practical. His genius lay in the multiplicity of his talents. Nowadays people like this are in short supply - we tend to specialize in one thing at the expense of all else. Diversity is unfortunately not a characteristic of our own age, a time when science and art, experience and imagination, the practical and the conceptual are poles apart. Sadly Ruskin suffered from periodic bouts of mental illness - many have put this down to an over-active brain! Among the multitude of quotes one could cite from Ruskin, how about this one: There is no wealth but life. Beautifully and succinctly put. And so, so true.