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BCD SPECIAL REPORT ON
HERITAGE RETROFIT
FIRST ANNUAL EDITION
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HEATING NATIONAL
TRUST PROPERTIES
EMMA GRIFFITHS
A
S THE UK’s largest private
landowner and custodian of many
of Britain’s most treasured historic
buildings, the National Trust (NT) has
a varied range of properties in its care.
These include 300 major historic houses,
office buildings, visitor centres, 360 holiday
cottages and around 5,000 tenanted
farmhouses and cottages on NT estates.
Climate change now poses the single
biggest threat to the places the trust
looks after bringing new, damaging
threats to a natural environment already
under pressure. It also poses a growing
conservation challenge for the houses
and gardens in the NT’s care, not least
as a result of the increasing frequency of
extreme weather events.
The trust currently spends nearly
£6 million a year on electricity, oil and
gas, offering a clear business incentive to
use energy more efficiently and, where
possible, to produce its own. Aside
from the economic benefits of moving
towards a renewable future, playing its
part in mitigating climate change is an
organisational priority for the trust as a
conservation charity. The National Trust
aims to cut energy usage by 20 per cent
from 2008 levels by 2020 and to generate
50 per cent of that from renewable
sources on its own land.
In the summer of 2015 the trust
made its biggest ever investment in
renewable energy to heat and power
more of the historic places it looks after.
The Renewable Energy Investment (REI)
programme followed the successful
completion of five renewable energy
projects at NT properties, part of a
£3.5 million pilot launched in 2013.
In one example, a 5,000-litre oil
tank in the grounds of Ickworth, Suffolk
was removed following the installation
of a biomass boiler, removing the
risk of contamination from oil leaks.
Using wood fuel sourced directly
from the estate created an even bigger
Blickling Hall in Norfolk, where the National Trust recently installed a 200kW lake source heat pump to heat the main hall