How free access for members works

All Historic Houses are independently run – we don’t own or operate any of the buildings or gardens ourselves.

When we say a place is ‘free for members’ we mean that the independent business itself has made a direct offer to you, when you show your card, to admit you for free.

Because those offers come from individual houses and gardens, not from us, they can, and sometimes do, change.

A dynamic list of offers

The list of places that make these offers might change. Sometimes a place might withdraw their offer for some reason (a major restoration project, perhaps, or the house has changed ownership), but new offers are made from time to time as well. For the last few years the number of places in the scheme has always been around three hundred.

Varying terms and rules

The exact rules of admission may change from place to place or time to time. Some attractions exclude certain days or times or zones (for example, the garden might be free but the house not). Others might impose a small additional charge for a service (like parking) or extra access (like an exhibition). It’s essential you check the individual attraction’s listing page on this site, or the attraction’s own site, to see what the precise deal is.

Changes to opening times and dates

Even if a place is offering free access, it may have changed its opening dates recently or have closed at short notice. It’s essential to check directly with an attraction before you set out to visit it.

Member access is carefully designed to only operate when it benefits you and the property at the same time. Where (or when) it doesn’t make financial sense for an attraction to offer free entry, they won’t, and they’re not obliged to.

Great value for visitors

Membership is the most economic way for heritage connoisseurs to seek out and visit more historic houses, castles, and gardens all across the UK. Every extra trip makes all your visits cheaper, so there’s a real incentive to take more outings than you would have done if you were buying your ticket each time. For those who pore over the annual handbook or website looking for hidden gems that they haven’t ticked off yet, membership can mean huge savings.

Extra income for houses and gardens

Historic Houses member places are, on average, less visited than similar attractions such as National Trust properties, and extra footfall from additional visits can make an important contribution towards earning the cash they need to pay for their own upkeep. Participating attractions can claim a small sum from Historic Houses for each of our members they admit for free, on top of the money visitors may have spent in the café or gift shop.

The tweaks that make it work

In a small number of cases, our member places have the opposite problem – not too few visitors, but too many. It’s a nice problem to have, but the huge crowds who go to, for example, Blenheim Palace or Hever Castle can impose significant extra costs in the form of staffing needs and wear-and-tear.

At these unusual member places, member access only makes sense with some restrictions – either a cap on the number of times per year our members can visit for free, or limiting free visiting to off-peak times when the grounds and rooms are quieter and there is spare capacity.

The same reasoning explains why free access isn’t offered to special events, to non-heritage attractions like exhibitions or adventure playgrounds, or for members who are part of a pre-booked coach party. In none of those scenarios is the property likely to be suffering from low footfall, so a policy of free access could actually undermine, rather than bolster, their efforts to maintain the site for future generations.

There are so many places that offer free entry to our members, and most are virtually unknown. We really want you to discover and visit the less famous ones. Our houses and gardens are all over the UK – you might just as easily find one on holiday at other end of the country as you might on your own doorstep. Going off the beaten track and calling in at places that you’ve never heard of and might never have seen otherwise is the perfect way to get the most out of membership.

The flip side is that, because of the way the scheme works as we’ve described it above, you you should not join it because you especially want to visit one particular place, especially if you aim ti go there on a regular basis.

You’ll find the added restrictions that come with our card put you at a disadvantage compared with those who’ve joined the property’s own loyalty scheme. They might even have to withdraw their offer of free entry unexpectedly, leaving you having to pay anyway. And we would rather you supported a member property of ours directly where that’s more appropriate – after all, we exist only for their benefit. So in that instance, get the attraction’s season ticket instead.

You might want to be savvy and flexible with the dates you can visit on, too, to get to the most interesting places. Some attractions open on a regular basis for the majority of the year, and have the car parks and cafes, guides and gift shops you might expect from a tourist business. But most are essentially people’s private homes, into which they invite the public on a fascinating and often quirky journey of discovery for anything from a few days to a few weeks a year. These places aren’t your average day out, but a visit will reward those who keep their eyes peeled for the dates the doors open.