The U.K.’s National Trust is Europe’s largest conservation charity, owning more than 500 historic houses, castles, parks, and gardens, and hundreds of miles of English, Welsh, and Nothern Irish coastline. For an annual membership fee, the Trust’s six million members gain free entry to all sites throughout the year. (For similar benefits, the Trust’s American supporters can join the Royal Oak Foundation.)

“The vast majority of people drive to Trust properties,” admits Zsolt Schuller, the Trust’s relatively new Cyclist Welcome Project Manager.

“Part of my role,” he adds, “is to recognize the opportunity to open us up to more active and sustainable travel.”

His job was newly created.

“The role came about because our head of data, Huw Davies, in 2022, took a sabbatical and cycled to 624 National Trust properties and collected data about his experiences,” said Schuller.

Davies gathered information on cycle parking, signage, and whether properties filled up cyclists’ water bottles for free.

“[Huw] realized that we welcome people on bikes inconsistently and made the case for somebody to develop a consistent welcome across all of our places,” said Schuller.

“I got that job.”

Schuller is a veteran transport planner specializing in active transport, such as cycling and walking. Speaking to me from the garden of the small National Trust property of A La Ronde, near Exeter—a property with its own cycling and walking link from the popular Exe estuary trail, a primarily off-road leisure route—Schuller said his job entails enhancing cycling infrastructure and connectivity to National Trust properties.

He also advises on better cycling-specific information and whether properties could offer incentives such as free coffee for those arriving at properties by cycle.

Historical interest

The Trust was founded in 1895 to “promote the permanent preservation for the benefit of the Nation of lands and tenements (including buildings) of beauty or historic interest.”

Across its properties and places, the Trust employs almost 14,000 people and has nearly 55,000 volunteers. The Trust also owns 200 historic houses open to the public—many of them “stately homes,” mansions erected by aristocrats—and the childhood homes of Paul McCartney and John Lennon. The Trust also owns—or protects—roughly one-fifth of the coastline in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, 780 miles in total.

Schuller works in the Trust’s existing outdoor experiences team.

“We’ve got people working on wayfinding and trail navigation to help people explore, but we’ve got water sports as well, so opening up some of the blue spaces that we might look after, for paddle boarding or canoeing.”

The National Trust is working to adapt its sites to a changing climate, making the places they care for more resilient. Part of that task is evaluating how people arrive at National Trust properties and places and whether that can be made more sustainable.

“My job is helping people arrive at places sustainably and actively,” said Schuller, adding that as well as boosting arrivals by foot and on bikes, the National Trust is also working on the rollout of electric vehicle charging infrastructure at some properties.

“We recognize that a lot of our properties aren’t going to be that easy to get to on foot or by bike or by public transport,” said Schuller.

Nevertheless, the Trust wants more people to arrive sustainably.

“A lot of our places don’t have very big car parks,” stresses Schuller, so it’s also often practically important to limit arrivals by car. There’s also a strong business sense for promoting more active and sustainable travel, said Schuller, especially for a conservation body.

While most visitors to Trust properties arrive by car this wasn’t always so. When the Trust was founded in 1895, there were just a handful of cars in the U.K., and it took a further two years before it became fully legal to drive on British roads. Schuller is researching the car-free part of the Trust’s history.

“For a long time, people arrived [at Trust properties] by sustainable means,” said Schuller.

“Car-based travel isn’t the only option. Over half of our places are less than four miles from a train station, so there’s huge potential for better, more sustainable transport links.”