A brief word on The National Trust: guardians of taste?

The Big Brother House 2013

Judging by the high dudgeon of some of the more conservative National Trust members on hearing the news that The Big Brother House is to join some of the country's great stately homes as an example of our heritage, you'd think they'd been asked to actually live there.

Whether we like it or not The Big Brother House has a cultural resonance for many and though it may not be of architectural significance, it has much to say about early twenty-first century society. The National Trust surely doesn't exist as an arbiter of taste; an impossible task when one person's rococo nightmare is another's fairytale palace. We are not all delighted by ceilings clustered with coy cherubs or interiors in which every surface is moulded and gilded like an oligarch's dream, and just because it's designed by Adam doesn't necessarily mean it is a thing of beauty to all (see naked, gold sofa-lady below). 

As I see it, a body like The National Trust is about conserving our heritage whatever that may be, and it demonstrates a satisfying sense of humour if it is prepared to include something as far removed from Jane Austen and genteel teas as is the Big Brother House.
I will not be visiting personally, though many will, but I happily support the spirit of it. 

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Gilded mermaid anyone? Made by John Linell to a Robert Adam design. Kedlestone Hall.

German rococo. Not NT, I know, but you see what I mean...