Entry passes · The Stately Homes
Is English Heritage membership worth it?
Adult membership is £84 a year and covers 13 of the 286 stately homes on this list, every one of them in England. Across four visits that is £21 a visit. The rest of the answer is geography, and it is on this page.
English Heritage adult membership costs £84 a year, or £7 a month by Direct Debit, read from the body's own join page on 13 August 2026. It covers 13 of the 286 stately homes here, across 9 regions of England. Every one of those 13 charges for entry, so there is no house among them where the card does nothing.
The gap between that 13 and the over 400 sites English Heritage advertises is not a discrepancy. Its estate is largely castles, abbeys, forts, monuments and ruins, and this list holds stately homes. If great houses are what you are buying the card for, 13 is the number to run the sums against, and this page runs them: what the fee comes to per visit, how the coverage compares with the National Trust city by city, and where it comes to nothing.
What it costs
| Membership | A year | A month |
|---|---|---|
| Adult, 26 and over | £84.00 | £7.00 |
| Senior, 65 and over | £72.00 | £6.00 |
| Young adult, 18 to 25 with a student card | £44.00 | £3.67 |
| Joint adult, two adults | £149.00 | £12.42 |
| Joint senior, two adults 65 and over | £116.00 | £9.67 |
| Adult and senior | £130.00 | £10.83 |
| Family, one adult and up to six children | £84.00 | £7.00 |
| Family, two adults and up to twelve children | £149.00 | £12.42 |
Standard rates read from English Heritage's join page on 13 August 2026, when the same page was advertising 25% off annual membership with the code EHSUM26, running to 31 August 2026. It applies to new annual memberships only, not to monthly Direct Debit and not to life membership. The sums below use the standard prices, because the offer has an end date and the arithmetic should outlast it. Membership also carries free parking at most English Heritage sites for members displaying a valid sticker.
What that is per visit
The fee is fixed, so its cost per visit falls the more you go. This is the number to hold against whatever the houses near you charge at the gate.
| Visits in a year | Adult, per visit | Joint, per visit for two |
|---|---|---|
| 1 visit | £84.00 | £149.00 |
| 2 visits | £42.00 | £74.50 |
| 3 visits | £28.00 | £49.67 |
| 4 visits | £21.00 | £37.25 |
| 6 visits | £14.00 | £24.83 |
| 8 visits | £10.50 | £18.62 |
| 10 visits | £8.40 | £14.90 |
| 12 visits | £7.00 | £12.42 |
Where it breaks even
The same sum the other way. These are not the prices any particular house charges. They are a scale to find your own place on, once you have checked the gate price of the two or three houses you would actually go to.
| If a ticket costs | Adult breaks even at | Joint breaks even at |
|---|---|---|
| £10 a head | 9 visits | 8 visits |
| £15 a head | 6 visits | 5 visits |
| £20 a head | 5 visits | 4 visits |
| £25 a head | 4 visits | 3 visits |
| £30 a head | 3 visits | 3 visits |
Joint membership covers two adults, so one outing by the pair saves two tickets. Its column counts trips they make together, not tickets, which is why it clears sooner than the single fee suggests.
English Heritage or the National Trust?
This is the question most people are really asking, and on stately homes the totals answer it quickly: the National Trust runs 147 charging stately homes on this list to English Heritage's 13, for £100.80 a year against £84. The useful answer is local rather than national, so the table gives both counts for every major city this site maps houses around. London is English Heritage's strongest at 8.
| City | English Heritage | National Trust | Best reviewed English Heritage house |
|---|---|---|---|
| London | 8 | 25 | Audley End House and Gardens ★ 4.6, 6,562 reviews |
| Southend-on-Sea | 6 | 17 | Audley End House and Gardens ★ 4.6, 6,562 reviews |
| Newcastle | 1 | 5 | Belsay Hall ★ 4.7, 2,685 reviews |
| Leeds | 1 | 8 | Brodsworth Hall and Gardens ★ 4.7, 4,279 reviews |
| Birmingham | 1 | 24 | Boscobel House and the Royal Oak ★ 4.6, 1,224 reviews |
| Edinburgh | 0 | 0 | None within range |
| Glasgow | 0 | 0 | None within range |
| Cardiff | 0 | 9 | None within range |
| Manchester | 0 | 10 | None within range |
| Liverpool | 0 | 11 | None within range |
| Bristol | 0 | 16 | None within range |
Counts are stately homes from this list within 40 miles of the city centre, straight-line, so a house at the edge of the ring is a longer drive than the number suggests. Each city links to its own hub, which lists every house near it rather than only the covered ones. The National Trust fee is costed the same way on its own page.
The London concentration
5 of the 13 English Heritage stately homes on this list are in Greater London: Kenwood, Eltham Palace and Gardens, Apsley House, Marble Hill House and Ranger's House - The Wernher Collection. That is 38% of the covered houses in one city, the highest share for any operator running five or more houses here - the next is 20%. For a Londoner it makes the card unusually easy to justify, because all 5 are inside the capital and reachable on public transport. For most other visitors it is the single biggest reason the national total of 13 overstates what the membership will do for them.
Where the card covers nothing
Cardiff, Manchester, Liverpool and Bristol return zero English Heritage stately homes within 40 miles, and in each of them the National Trust covers some. That is the clearest version of the comparison: if your weekends start in one of those cities and stately homes are what you are after, English Heritage membership is not the card doing the work, whatever the over 400 figure suggests. It may still earn its keep on castles and abbeys, which this list does not cover.
The 13 houses it covers
Every English Heritage stately home on this list, with its Google rating and review count. 46,364 reviews across the 13 of them that carry one.
| House | County | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Osborne | Isle of Wight | ★ 4.6, 10,203 reviews |
| Audley End House and Gardens | Essex | ★ 4.6, 6,562 reviews |
| Kenwood | Greater London | ★ 4.7, 6,422 reviews |
| Wrest Park | Bedfordshire | ★ 4.6, 5,404 reviews |
| Eltham Palace and Gardens | Greater London | ★ 4.6, 4,983 reviews |
| Brodsworth Hall and Gardens | South Yorkshire | ★ 4.7, 4,279 reviews |
| Belsay Hall | Northumberland | ★ 4.7, 2,685 reviews |
| Down House (Home of Charles Darwin) | Kent | ★ 4.7, 2,429 reviews |
| Apsley House | Greater London | ★ 4.6, 1,287 reviews |
| Boscobel House and the Royal Oak | Shropshire | ★ 4.6, 1,224 reviews |
| Marble Hill House | Greater London | ★ 4.6, 563 reviews |
| Ranger's House - The Wernher Collection | Greater London | ★ 4.4, 316 reviews |
| Great Yarmouth Row Houses and Greyfriars' Cloisters | Norfolk | ★ 4.9, 7 reviews |
Membership or the Overseas Visitor Pass?
English Heritage sells both, and they answer different questions. The Overseas Visitor Pass runs 9 or 16 days and is built for one trip, which makes annual membership the cheaper instrument for anyone going back through the year and the dearer one for a fortnight's holiday. Our pass listing rosters the same houses against that product.
Where these numbers come from
The membership rates are quoted from English Heritage's own join page, read on 13 August 2026, and the over 400 figure is the body's own wording for its whole estate. Everything else is computed from this site's list at build time: which houses English Heritage runs, which the National Trust runs, which charge for entry, their coordinates, and their publicly available Google ratings and review counts, 46,364 reviews across the 13 covered houses that carry them. No admission prices are held here, and none are estimated on this page.
Check before you buy
Membership rates change, usually once a year, and promotional discounts come and go with their own end dates. What is included at an individual property can change too: some events, car parks and part-year openings sit outside the standard offer. Confirm the current price and the terms on English Heritage's own page before joining, and check the houses you are actually planning to visit rather than the total.
Questions people ask
How much is English Heritage membership?
Adult membership for anyone 26 or over is £84 a year, or £7 a month by Direct Debit. Joint membership for two adults is £149 a year, a senior aged 65 or over pays £72, and a young adult aged 18 to 25 with a student card pays £44. Those were the standard rates on English Heritage's own join page on 13 August 2026, when the page was also advertising 25% off annual membership with the code EHSUM26, running to 31 August 2026. It applies to new annual memberships only, not to monthly Direct Debit and not to life membership.
How many stately homes does English Heritage membership cover?
On this list, 13 of 286 stately homes, across 9 regions and all of them in England. English Heritage's own figure for its whole estate is over 400 sites, but most of those are castles, abbeys, forts, monuments and ruins rather than great houses. The 13 here is the number that matters if it is stately homes you are going to visit.
Is English Heritage or National Trust membership better value?
On stately homes specifically, the National Trust covers far more of them: 147 on this list against English Heritage's 13. It also costs more, at £100.80 a year against £84. Geography decides it rather than the totals. Of the 11 major cities this site maps houses around, English Heritage has a covered stately home within 40 miles of 5 of them, and the National Trust of more. The table on this page gives both counts for each city, which is the comparison worth making before either card is bought.
Does English Heritage membership cover Scotland or Wales?
Not on this list. Every one of the 13 English Heritage stately homes here is in England, which is what the body's remit covers. Scotland's equivalents are run by Historic Environment Scotland and the National Trust for Scotland, and Wales's by Cadw, each with its own membership or pass. English Heritage does run reciprocal arrangements with some of them, so read your own membership terms rather than assuming either way.
How many visits does it take for English Heritage membership to pay for itself?
It depends on the gate price of the houses you would actually visit, which is set property by property. The arithmetic is fixed either way: at £84 a year, adult membership costs £21 a visit if you go four times and £8.40 a visit if you go ten. Against a £20 adult ticket it breaks even on visit number 5; against a £15 one, visit number 6.