1995
The National Trust celebrated its centenary with a service in St Paul’s Cathedral and a lunch in Grosvenor House, where its inaugural meeting had taken place.

In its first hundred years it had become the guardian of 580,000 acres of countryside in England, Wales and Northern Ireland; 545 miles of coast; 230 historic houses and 130 important gardens.

2000
Thirty years after the Benson Report, the Trust embarked on another major structural review, to enable it to work more effectively with other conservation bodies and to improve its internal processes.

The Trust’s Head Office, which had spawned into four separate buildings, was to be relocated to a central office in Swindon. The number of regions was reduced from 15 to 11.

2001
The Trust reaffirmed its commitment to preserving both natural beauty and a viable economy in rural areas through its ‘Farming Forward’ initiative, launched at the time of the foot & mouth crisis. This committed the Trust to investing more in the economic well-being of rural communities and to taking account of the wider environmental responsibilities of its land ownership.

In the publication of ‘Working in Urban Areas’, the Trust showed that two thirds of the Trust’s properties are within a 20 minute drive of our 15 largest cities. The Inner City Project in Newcastle and the London Links project are developing these connections and bring widely different sections of the community in touch with the Trust’s work.

2002
The range of the Trust’s activities was demonstrated by the opening of several contrasting properties, including a Victorian workhouse at Southwell, the estate of a family of Welsh country squires at Llanarchaeron, and the great Anglo-Saxon burial site at Sutton Hoo.

The High Victorian country house, Tyntesfield, near Bristol was put up for sale. Within 100 days the Trust had raised £3 million from over 50,000 individual donors and secured a grant of £17.5 million from the National Heritage Memorial Fund.

The house has become a symbol of the ideals of nineteenth century industrialists and philanthropists and also of continuing support for the work of the National Trust. As with all the Trust’s major acquisitions, Tyntesfield gives the Trust the opportunity to open doors on the past, in ways that have special relevance for today.

2003
The designer William Morris was a friend and supporter of Octavia Hill. The purchase of his Red House meant that the Trust had acquired more buildings of major architectural distinction in the space of nine months than it had in the previous ten years - reaffirming the ideals of the Founders.

2005
The National Trust moves to its new central office in Swindon, 'Heelis', bringing staff from its four central offices under one roof for the first time. A small office in London remains.

2007
The National Trust celebrates membership figures hitting the 3.5 million mark.