History of the National Trust

It is said that reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body, so as well as trying (but not always succeeding) to keep the body trim by going for a short run every day, Sherds also (more successfully) sets aside time to spend with a book in the evening. Sherds’ current reading includes Michael Hall’s absorbing history of the National Trust, called A Queer Inheritance. In it, the author shows that not every property donated to the Trust during the post-war decades came from a distressed owner faced with punitive death duties, declining agricultural income, and ruinous maintenance bills. Instead, some of the Trust’s star properties were donated by ‘confirmed bachelors’ (of