Clandon and the National Trust’s crisis of confidence

Dear Editor

The National Trust wants to preserve the “evocative space” created by the fire where Clandon’s majestic Marble Hall used to be. The Trust is giving up on restoration and the opportunities it would create for perpetuating traditional crafts, preferring to hand down to posterity a monument to its crisis of confidence. I would like to suggest an analogy:

"Fragments of the Fragonard"...

Canvas falls to the floor, is trampled on.

Managers agonise for years.

Decision to conserve as found.

Expert says there is merit in seeing the frame empty.

The Trust's change in direction on Clandon may coincide with the loss of Specialist Curators and mark the Trust's loss of confidence in its country houses at its nadir.

Luckily there are signs of a revival of interest in its country houses and this surely prompts opportunity of a less 'mournful' future for the sensationally ebullient interiors we have loved so much?

Jeffrey Haworth