The National Trust's commitment to Britain's built heritage goes beyond the show homes of the wealthy. We care for some extraordinary buildings with very ordinary backgrounds. Buildings that tell us an enormous amount about our domestic and industrial past.

Vernacular buildings

A complementary survey has also been undertaken to analyse and record the historic fabric of the National Trust's 20,000 or so vernacular buildings. This has revealed a considerable and unsuspected wealth of important small buildings in the National Trust's care. At Lacock in Wiltshire, survey has identified a number of medieval cruck-framed buildings within the village, whilst at Broadclyst on the Killerton estate in Devon, it has confirmed the medieval origins of many apparently much later cottages.

The increased understanding provided by these surveys is essential to guide the conservation management necessary to conserve both the buildings and their landscape contexts. It has also produced an impressive record of the range and variety of styles and materials, of craftsmanship, uses and status in vernacular building, whose implications for research and conservation go far beyond the National Trust.

Great houses & mansions

Programmes of survey and analysis also help to inform the understanding and management of our major historic buildings, many of which may appear to be later, but which have at their heart the traces of an earlier, medieval house. Some medieval monastic buildings in National Trust ownership survive in this way. At Lacock in Wiltshire, a fine Renaissance house with later additions incorporates wonderful, surviving medieval cloisters. At Mottisfont Abbey in Hampshire, the monastic church was converted into the existing house after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and at Buckland Abbey in Devon, the same thing occurred, ensuring the survival of parts of the medieval buildings.

Structural alterations and repairs to historic houses on Trust properties are normally accompanied by archaeological investigation, recording and analysis. The archaeologist and the architect work closely together to gain maximum information about the house's historic fabric and to ensure that necessary works are carried out as sensitively as possible.