On Sunday 2nd March 2014 we drove down to Dunwich Heath on the Suffolk coast with our two small children in tow. We weren’t planning to go away far on holiday that year, so on the spur of the moment we signed up for a year’s National Trust membership at the cabin and decided to keep a running tally to see whether it earned its keep.
Joint membership in 2014 cost £95 and let our two under-fives in for free. The first-year online direct-debit rate was £71.62 — we’d have done that with hindsight, but signing up at the gate after a long beach walk was hard to resist.
We live just outside Norwich within easy reach of a handful of National Trust properties — about typical for most families in the country. So the question was simple: would £95 of “all you can eat” beat paying as we went? Below is what we actually did, visit by visit, with the running total in plain pounds.
Our 2014 family membership tally — visit by visit
1 March: Dunwich Heath, Suffolk
Car parking £5. We had a lovely lunch in the coastguard cottage and a walk on the beach. The food at the cabin is genuinely good, although it does feel slightly odd that members aren’t offered any discount in the cafés.
Running total: £95 − £5 = £90 to recoup
15 March: Blickling Estate, Norfolk
Car parking £2.50, gardens £8.95 each. With two toddlers running on fumes we skipped the house — that would have pushed entry to £13.50 a head. £8.95 each just for the gardens felt steep, especially with two children in a buggy.
An excellent lunch first, then a slow walk around the parterre and the lake. One thing worth knowing: you can park up and use the restaurant, gift shop, little museum and the front of the grounds without paying the gardens fee — useful if you only want a quick stop.
Running total: £90 − £20.40 = £69.60 to recoup
4 May: Dunwich Heath, again
Car parking £5. A Sunday roast in the cabin, a long beach walk, then a run over to Southwold for an ice-cream and a peek at the lighthouse — one of those days that makes you grateful you signed up.
Running total: £69.60 − £5 = £64.60 to recoup
23 June: Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk
Free parking, hall and gardens £9.40 each — £18.80 for the two of us. We squeezed in a morning here on the way home from a weekend in north Norfolk and absolutely fell for the place: moat, priest’s hole, walled kitchen garden and a tea-room you don’t want to leave.
Running total: £64.60 − £18.80 = £45.80 to recoup
26 June: Dunwich Heath (a quick stop on the way home)
Car parking £5. After a day in Aldeburgh we popped in to use the café and run the children down to the beach for an hour. £5 to park is a lot for a one-hour stop — without the membership card on the dashboard we’d probably have carried straight on home.
Running total: £45.80 − £5 = £40.80 to recoup
Halfway report: were we on track?
Four months in, we’d recouped just over half the £95. With the best of the summer ahead of us we were on track to at least break even — the only snag was that we’d already worked through most of the easy-drive National Trust places near Norwich, so the rest of the year would mean returning to favourites. Not the worst problem to have, particularly with Oxburgh on the list.
Update 2026 — our family reviews of favourite National Trust places
A decade on from the original experiment we’re still members, and we’ve written up full family visits to several of the properties mentioned above and a few further afield. If you’re weighing up whether membership is worth it for a particular holiday, these may help:
- Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk — walled kitchen garden, Victory V avenue, Squire’s Pantry tea-room.
- Blickling Hall, Norfolk — bike hire, Muddy Boots café and one of the largest NT second-hand bookshops.
- Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk — moated manor, priest’s hole, walled garden.
- Stonehenge, Wiltshire — honest NT / English Heritage split, the shuttle-bus tip we wish we’d had, and the free NT landscape walks around the stones.
Is National Trust membership worth it in 2026? The honest maths.
If you’re weighing membership up today — more than a decade on from the 2014 experiment above — here’s the current (April 2026) picture for a family of four on a week’s holiday that mixes a Norfolk break with a Stonehenge stop on the drive home.
Picture 2 adults and 2 under-16s. Gate prices work out as: Felbrigg Hall £45 family ticket + £5 parking = £50; Blickling Hall £45 + £5 = £50; Oxburgh Hall £35 family, parking free = £35; Stonehenge £88.80 for the family, parking included = £88.80. That’s £223.80 for four visits paid at the gate.
An annual National Trust family membership — 2 adults and all children under 18 — is £176.40 by annual Direct Debit, and it covers every one of those visits (yes, including Stonehenge — the stones themselves are managed by English Heritage, but NT England members book a free ‘affiliate member’ ticket on the EH site and walk in free that way, thanks to the long-standing NT/EH reciprocal arrangement). Sign up online by Direct Debit and you also get a free Guest Pass to share with a friend or grandparent.
On this one holiday alone you’re about £47 better off as a member — and every NT property you visit for the rest of the year is pure savings, with free parking at over 300 of them.
One more budget point worth knowing. National Trust family membership can be paid by monthly Direct Debit rather than in one lump sum — £14.70 a month for a two-adult family, or £9.10 a month for a one-adult family — spread across twelve instalments. That can be a lot easier to plan around than a clutch of peak-season family tickets arriving all at once during the school holidays.