The National Trust (Welsh: Ymddiriedolaeth Genedlaethol) is a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the permanent preservation for the benefit of the Nation of lands and tenements (including buildings) of beauty or historic interest".

One of the largest landowners in the United Kingdom, the Trust owns almost 250,000 hectares (620,000 acres; 2,500 km2; 970 sq mi) of land and 780 miles (1,260 km) of coast.

It also receives grants from a variety of organisations including other charities, government departments, local authorities, and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

[4]: 1–23 In July 1894 a provisional council, headed by Hill, Hunter, Rawnsley and the Duke of Westminster met at Grosvenor House and decided that the company should be named the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty.

[4]: 24-25 The Trust acquired its first land in early 1895; Dinas Oleu, on the clifftop above Barmouth in Wales, was donated by Fanny Talbot, a friend of Rawnsley.

[4]: 34-36  Two of the sites acquired by the Trust in its early years later became nature reserves: Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire and Blakeney Point in Norfolk, both purchased with the help of a donation by naturalist and banker Charles Rothschild.

The Trust's 5,000 acres (2,000 ha) of land in the Lake District were augmented by gifts in his memory, including part of the Great Wood on Derwentwater.

Their donations enabled the Trust to purchase various properties including Shalford Mill, in Surrey, and Newtown Old Town Hall, on the Isle of Wight.

The first property to be actually handed over to the Trust under the scheme was a relatively modern house: Wightwick Manor near Wolverhampton had been built just fifty years earlier.

The first open space acquired by the Trust under the Land scheme was farmland at Hartsop in the Lake District; the first country house was Cotehele in Cornwall.

[4]: 335-337 In 1965 the Trust launched Enterprise Neptune, a campaign to raise funds to buy or acquire covenants over stretches of coastline and protect them from development.

An extraordinary general meeting was called in February 1967 and, although the reform group's resolutions were defeated, the Trust recognised the need for change and set up an advisory committee to look at their management and organisation.

Starting in the 1970s, tea rooms and souvenir shops were opened in Trust properties, and in 1984 a company was set up to operate the trading activities.

[4]: 335 When the Trust reached its centenary in 1995 it owned or looked after 223 houses, 159 gardens, 670,000 acres (270,000 ha; 2,700 km2; 1,050 sq mi) of open countryside, and 530 miles (850 km) of coastline.

[14] Research carried out by the Trust revealed in 2020 that 93, nearly one third, of their houses and gardens had connections with colonialism and historic slavery: 'this includes the global slave trades, goods and products of enslaved labour, abolition and protest, and the East India Company'.

[15] The report attracted controversy and the Charity Commission opened a regulatory compliance case into the Trust in September 2020 to examine the trustees' decision-making.

[16] In 2020 the Dunham Massey Hall sundial statue of "a kneeling African figure clad in leaves carrying the sundial above his head" was removed from its position in front of Dunham Massey Hall after calls were made for the removal of statues in Britain with links to the slave trade in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.

Building surveyor Roger Bryant was convicted in September 2024 of having submitted false invoices to the Trust and was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison.

[18] The COVID-19 pandemic led to the closure in March 2020 of National Trust houses, shops, and cafes, closely followed by all gated parks and gardens.

[19] At the same time, the Trust launched the #BlossomWatch campaign which encouraged people to share images on social media of blossoms seen on lockdown walks.

[1] The Trust also takes part in the annual Heritage Open Days programme, when non-members can visit selected properties free of charge.

[33]: 6–12  Attingham Park in Shropshire, the most visited National Trust country house in 2019/20, is set in typical grounds with a walled garden and extensive parkland planted with trees to the designs of Humphry Repton.

Clumber House was largely demolished in 1938, leaving a 19th-century chapel as the focus of the park, which also contains a lake with wooded islands, a stable block, glasshouses, and two classical temples.

[34] Since the 1980s, the Trust has been increasingly reluctant to take over large houses without substantial accompanying endowment funds, and its acquisitions in this category have been less frequent, with only two, Tyntesfield and Seaton Delaval Hall, since 2000.

[33]: 50 Some properties have individual arrangements with the Trust, so for example Wakehurst Place is managed by the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew and Waddesdon Manor by a private foundation; both are open to the public.

As part of this programme, the Trust has worked with over 200 artists to create new artworks inspired by their places including: Jeremy Deller, Anya Gallaccio, Antony Gormley, Sir Richard Long, Serena Korda, Marcus Coates and Katie Paterson.

[1] A large part of this consists of parks and agricultural estates attached to country houses, but there are many countryside properties which were acquired specifically for their scenic or scientific value.

[40] Most National Trust land, about 200,000 hectares (490,000 acres; 2,000 km2; 770 sq mi), consists of tenant or in-hand farms, where public access is restricted to rights of way and sometimes additional routes.

[33]: 6 The Trust owns or protects roughly one-fifth of the coastline in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland (780 miles (1,260 km)), and has a long-term campaign, Project Neptune, which seeks to acquire more.