If you’ve ever had a lovely walk through some of the UK’s beautiful countryside, there’s a chance you’ve wandered onto one of the UK’s prestigious National Trust sites.
The National Trust protects areas of natural beauty and historical heritage throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland. We’ve taken a look at some National Trust sites that have fascinating stories to tell.
Woolsthorpe Manor
Sir Isaac Newton’s discovery of gravity is a story that’s gone down in history. As he told it at a dinner party in the 1700s, he watched an apple falling from a tree and was inspired to explore the forces acting upon it.
Most people imagine the apple falling on Sir Isaac’s head, but we’ll never know if that actually happened.
The tree that started it all, though, can be seen at Newton’s family home: Woolsthorpe Manor in Lincolnshire. The tree belongs to a rare breed called Flower of Kent, and seeds from its fruit were sent to the International Space Station in 2015.
Stonehenge Landscape
Stonehenge, the Neolithic monument in Salisbury, is one of the most iconic historical sites in the UK. The stone circle itself is managed by English Heritage, but 800 hectares of the countryside around it, which includes the area where some of its builders are thought to have lived, is looked after by the National Trust.
How and why Stonehenge was built has been a topic of debate for centuries, and remains so to this day. According to one disproved legend, it was built by Merlin, a mythical wizard who was often described as a close confidant of the legendary King Arthur.
Giant’s Causeway
Another place in the UK with mythical origins is the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland, an impressive structure of huge basalt rock columns that go down to the sea. The legend goes that a giant called Finn McCool (Fionn mac Cumhaill in Irish) built it as a bridge to Scotland, in order to fight another giant who was taunting him.
But Finn was renowned for his superior strength, not so much for his accuracy. According to a different legend, in another fight with a giant (Finn was seemingly very argumentative), he threw some earth which missed, landed in the sea, and became what we now know to be the Isle of Man.
Hadrian’s Wall and Housesteads Fort
This impressive stretch of stone was ordered to be built by the Roman Emperor Hadrian to separate Roman conquered Britain from the unconquered parts - what was then known as Caledonia. It is now the Roman Empire’s best-maintained outpost in northern Europe, even though lots of the stone used to build it was taken to build churches and other things in the area after the Empire fell. It’s estimated that over a million cubic metres of stone were used to build the wall that stretches for over 70 miles.
Blakeney Point
If you think the UK’s wildlife is limited to foxes and the odd bird, think again. At Blakeney Point, you can find England’s largest grey seal colony, where around 3000 pups are born each year. Their scientific name is Halichoerus grypus, which means ‘hook-nosed sea pig’ - very literal.
Freshwater West
National Trust sites across the country have been used time and time again on-screen, both the big and small, breathing new life in the UK’s countryside and heritage buildings. One such place is Freshwater West in Pembrokeshire - you might recognise it as the home of Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour‘s Shell Cottage which appears in the penultimate Harry Potter film.
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