The Quantock Centre has made a number of donations to National Trust properties this year. They include the following:
Uppark House, South Harting, Hampshire - £100 towards the cost of work being carried out on the dining room chairs which, after 250 years' use, require some renovation.
Coleton Fishacre, Kingswear, Devon - £100 towards the cost of re-laying the paving stones on Seemly Terrace to help make disabled access easier.
Castle Drogo, Drewsteignton, Devon - £100 towards the cost of leather binders for house information sheets in the various rooms of the Castle. The binders will display its emblem, and the Centre will be sent a photograph of them.
Another donation is in the pipeline for Saltram House, Plymouth. It is also intended to purchase another digital camera for Tyntesfield, North Somerset, because the two which the Centre gave to the property three years ago are wearing out. The cameras as used for the cataloguing of thousands of items at the house.
The Quantock Centre responded to an urgent appeal in 2005 to install a CCTV camera in the shop area of the stables at Dunster Castle where the roof area houses a small colony of rare Lesser Horseshoe bats.
The Centre's donation of just over £1,100 enabled other matched funding to be obtained, and the equipment has now been installed.
Representatives of the Quantock Centre, with other donors, were recently invited to view the equipment and go on a Bat Walk, led by Nigel Hester from Holnicote Estate as a “thank you” for the support given.
The Autumn programme has been a great success, with only a few places left unbooked. However, there was inevitably some disappointment. Visits to Lacock Abbey, Owlpen Manor, Sandford Orcas and the Somerset Record Office were heavily oversubscribed and there had to be ballots for places. By contrast, visits to the British Commonwealth Museum at Bristol and the Velazquez Exhibition in London had to be cancelled through lack of interest.