Ruins rescued and rented: the Landmark Trust celebrates 50 years

Ruined, rescued, rented "It is essential to bring at least two working torches; access after dark could be difficult or impossible without them." Instructions to the West Banqueting House, an early 17th-century architectural gem on the edge of Chipping Campden in the English Cotswolds, are practical and to the point. In contrast with the rest of the village, with its chichi gastropubs and guesthouses, all in tasteful shades of taupe, this one-bedroom retreat is refreshingly fuss-free. There is no television, no WiFi, in fact nothing - beyond a spartan but sufficient level of comfort - that could detract from the splendour of the surroundings. And unlike most other heritage sites, where visitors can look-but-not-touch, a sense of ownership is positively encouraged.

One of several fragments that remain of Old Campden House, which was built by the wealthy merchant Baptist Hicks in about 1615 and destroyed in 1645 during the civil war, the West Banqueting House is an almost fantasy creation in rich golden limestone, adorned with decorative parapets and barley-sugar chimneys. It was built as an open-sided pavilion where Hicks and his guests could retire after meals to enjoy wine and sweetmeats, and views over the formal gardens, but by the late 20th century the structure's only use was as a sheep shelter. Today it offers the ideal setting for a weekend spent wallowing in the past.

West Banqueting House is one of almost 240 historic buildings that are in the Landmark Trust's care. Founded in 1965 by Sir John Smith, a Conservative politician born into the Abel Smith banking family, Landmark was designed to serve two purposes. Smith noticed that if organisations such as the National Trust (a British conservation charity founded in 1895) preserved only the most prominent historic buildings these would in time stick out "as a diamond ring in the spaghetti", so he focused his attention on small but significant structures and realised he could spread his enthusiasm by inviting the public to rent and enjoy these buildings.

"[Smith] witnessed what anybody in the mid-1960s witnessed, which was the unstoppable locomotive of destruction going through historic buildings - 400 listed buildings were knocked down in 1965 - and he was desperate about it," says Anna Keay, director of the Landmark Trust. "Lots of things that in 1965 other people would have thought laughable in terms of heritage, 19th-century military fortifications, or old prisons . . . he absolutely got that these places were every bit as interesting and as precious as a Vanbrugh country house."

Now Landmark is planning a "Golden Weekend" of activities across the country in May to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Over the years it has taken on numerous notable buildings: some, like The Chateau in Lincolnshire, miniature in scale, others, such as Palladio's magnificent Villa Saraceno in the Veneto, much larger. It has a handful of properties in Italy and France and 23 properties on Lundy Island, which has been conserved and managed by the trust since 1969. Many of its rentals, including Cawood Castle in Yorkshire, the site of Cardinal Wolsey's arrest in 1530, remind us of great moments in history, while others, such a Swarkestone Pavilion in Derbyshire, which had a starring role in a 1968 photo shoot of the Rolling Stones, have a more whimsical appeal.

Smith's ambitious vision was realised with the help of his own private wealth, shrewd business sense and the luck of the moment. He had already established his own charitable trust - the Manifold Trust - in 1962 and raised money for this by purchasing long-lease (non-heritage) properties that were close to their expiry date then letting them out, having spotted, before many others, that as a charity it would not be taxed on this rental income. A director of Coutts bank (he also served as a director of the Financial Times, and chairman of Rolls-Royce) he was also able to secure large loans, and these, together with capital from the Manifold Trust, helped him purchase or secure leases on heritage properties in need of rescue.

So expertly was the Manifold Trust managed that the Landmark Trust could rely on it for funding during the first 25 years. In 1994, however, Landmark was afforded charitable status and struck out on its own while maintaining a somewhat old-fashioned approach to marketing. It has paid for just one advertisement, in 1967, and until 2013 its website was little more than a holding page, with bookings taken by post or over the phone. Still only 7 per cent of visitors come from overseas. But today there is more interest in spreading the word, and the launch of "Landmark Pioneers", an initiative that will involve donors from the early stages of a building's rescue through to its restoration, is part of Landmark's wider revamp.

"In the very early days, Smith went round with a notebook, looking over walls, writing down 'pigsty - quite interesting' and things like that," says Keay. The pigsty that caught his eye is a late 19th-century neoclassical stable in Yorkshire - a Grand Tourist's joke - now restored and converted into a one-bedroom holiday cottage with spectacular views over Robin Hood's Bay. "But within five years of Landmark being set up people were coming to [the trust] and there was more than he could cope with".

Not surprisingly, Landmark is now inundated with applications about buildings in need of rescue, but in an average year it is able to take on just two new projects. Some of these will be acquisitions, others will be on a long-lease basis and the rest bequeathed.

This year sees the opening of two new Landmark properties: St Edward's Presbytery in Kent, designed by AWN Pugin in 1850, and Belmont, an 18th-century villa in Lyme Regis that was owned by the sculptor and businesswoman Eleanor Coade, and more recently occupied by the novelist John Fowles. Though she is now largely forgotten, Coade was one of the most notable of English architectural pioneers, inventing an artificial and virtually indestructible ceramic stone, known as Coad stone, that from 1769 was mass produced at her factory in Lambeth. Such was Coade's entrepreneurial spirit that her seaside retreat in Dorset became an advert for these wares, with delicate Coad stone decorations set on to its salmon pink facade.

"What we've been doing there is two things. One is to get the house itself largely back to its shape and arrangement and configuration in Mrs Coade's day," says Keay. "But the John Fowles part of the story is really interesting too and we've gone into a really nice partnership with the creative writing MA at UEA [University of East Anglia], so they'll be bringing creative writing students twice a year to just inhabit the building and write there."

Some people have criticised Landmark for what they consider to be high rental prices, and certainly a number of the properties can seem difficult or expensive to secure. Clavell Tower, for instance, a romantic 1830s folly on a clifftop in Dorset, is booked up until 2017, while 43 Cloth Fair, a one-bedroom flat in London - once home to the poet John Betjeman - costs £887 for three nights in September. Keay argues that in general costs are kept low. "To stay in one of our buildings, averaged out across the year, is £45 per person per night, which is [about] the same as a Travelodge [budget hotel]. About 15 per cent [of properties] you can get at some part of the year for £15 per person."

With the National Trust having taken on a broader range of properties over the past 15 years, including back-to-back terraces in Birmingham and a Modernist property in Surrey, and the arrival of new organisations such as Alain de Botton's Living Architecture, which offers houses designed by leading contemporary architects for holiday rental, many believe the Landmark Trust should take on more 20th-century buildings. To date, it has just one Modernist building on its books - Anderton House in Devon - although its restoration of Astley Castle in Warwickshire, which combined new-build with existing ruins, won the RIBA Stirling Prize in 2013. So is Landmark looking to take on more modern buildings?

"We'd love to," says Keay, "but we've got to make sure that it actually meets our criteria because it's no good just doing it because you think it's quite fun and it would look nice, and with a lot of 20th-century domestic buildings of architectural merit, there's quite a good market for them so they're not necessarily the ones that are falling through the gaps." She talks excitedly about a recent approach regarding an early 19th-century semaphore communications tower. "We're interested in buildings that have something particular to say about British history that isn't properly appreciated or thought about at the moment."

Laura Battle is deputy editor of House & Home

Sixteen years after the launch of Landmark Trust, John Smith began to take on properties outside of the UK, writes Maud Goodhart. Landmark now manages six places for rent in Italy, three in France and, from June, one in Belgium.

The appeal of these overseas properties is aimed squarely at a British audience and most of the properties have a British link in their past. In two cases the history is a morbid one: a new Landmark property has been created within Hougoumont farm in Belgium, one of the most notable sites in the Battle of Waterloo, while the oldest overseas Landmark (taken on in 1981) is a flat off the Piazza di Spagna in Rome that offers a romantic hideaway for two in the same building where the poet John Keats died of tuberculosis in 1821. For those with an interest in 19th-century literature, there is also an apartment in Florence's Piazza San Felice where Elizabeth and Robert Browning once lived.

The second overseas Landmark - a villa in northern Italy designed by Andrea Palladio - was found in 1989 and added to the collection because of the influence of the Palladian style on British architecture. Huge in scale, the property sleeps 16 and costs £3,716 for four nights in high season.

The trio of Landmarks in France (in Gif-sur-Yvette near Paris) are part of an 18th-century mill complex where the Duke of Windsor fled with Wallis Simpson following his abdication in 1936.

In Vermont, the Landmark Trust US (which grew out of the UK charity but is now a separate organisation) manages five properties, two of which were previously owned by Rudyard Kipling and his family.

For now, there are no further plans to expand the international operation, according to Simon Verdon, head of business operations at the Landmark Trust, unless, of course, something irresistible comes along.

Photographs: The Landmark Trust

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