Making a connection with the past in a vibrant house packed with stories

Hall, as SHARON GRIFFITHS found out JACQUELYN Frith was an archaeologist, sitting soggily in a hole full of mud at the side of the A1. As the rain fell and the traffic thundered past, the time had come, she thought, for a change of career.

First of all, as a bit of a contrast to the hole in the ground, there was a trip to Everest -"If I could do that, I could do anything" - and then she landed at the National Trust's Beningbrough Hall, an 18th century mansion near York, where she fizzes with energy, ideas and enthusiasm.

The National Trust is changing.

That terribly tasteful whiff of staid gentility and pot pourri is gradually being blown away.

That's clear even in the car park at Beningbrough. In among the traditional NT visitors - generally older, probably retired - making the most of the unexpected spring sunshine, there are also surprising numbers of young parents and small children chasing happily around.

"Beningbrough is for everyone,"

said Ms Frith, 36, and she really meant it. "The National Trust has this image of being stuffy old houses full of stuffy old people, but it's really not like that any more."

Ms Frith, the least stuffy person you can imagine, is visitor services manager - "dogsbody and occasional toiler cleaner" - charged with looking after 200 volunteer guides, the shop and anything that brings in money, which includes weddings, complete with champagne, canapes and a string quartet.

Beningbrough has a year-round programme of activities ranging from summer concerts with champagne and strawberries, jazz and swing bands. As well as special school events - Schools Below Stairs gets the little ones slaving away in the famous laundry - there are regular art workshops for children, called Artrageous. "The learning team are brilliant, inspired,"

she says.

There are a lot of foody things as well - evenings of chocolate, or puddings, or starters, or mini main courses. The walled garden restaurant takes its food seriously and uses a lot of local produce, including some grown in the garden.

Ms Frith, building on the good work of her predecessors, is constantly, frenetically, thinking up more activities, ways to make the house more welcoming. Not for her a nice quiet winter hibernation.

"We already keep open on weekends through the winter, which not many NT places do, but that's also when we do all the planning for the year, get all the programme sorted, leaflets printed, so it's still a busy time." she says.

Her job is not just about getting people in. "We want people to enjoy it. Lots of members are here nearly every weekend.

"They think of it as their own garden, which is lovely."

It's worked too. Visitor numbers are rising fast and some poor, unsuspecting family was recently pounced on for being the 110,000th visitors since March last year.

"They looked a bit bemused, as well they might, but we gave them some presents, so they were very happy."

As well as winter weekends, they have events on summer evenings too. "It's really nice to have events on summer evenings, when people come in and enjoy the different atmosphere," says Ms Frith.

"When the weather's good - which it wasn't very often last year, but this year it will be - the walled garden is wonderful."

It's all helped by the volunteers, 200 of them. "Fabulous, all of them. Absolutely not the National Trust stereotype. I promise, they will not pin you in a corner and drone on at you until you're desperate to escape. Honestly, those days are gone," says Ms Frith.

This year, some of the volunteers will be dressed in Georgian costume, identical to those in the portraits, and will be happy to talk in character or explain the details of dress, whatever people want. "It all adds that bit more," says Ms Frith.

The volunteers also run a thriving second-hand bookshop which has raised £30,000 over the last five years - money which goes straight back to Beningbrough.

The hall is more accessible than many big houses. "We even have a lift, just because someone's husband was looking at the plans and said casually You could fit a lift in there', so we went for it."

For the sake of the building, they can't allow buggies in the house.

"But we took up the cobbles in the courtyard to make it easier for buggies and wheelchairs. Yes, the cobbles looked very nice, but we thought it more important that people could get across there easily."

When they stocked up the baby changing rooms and the restaurant, it meant that Ms Frith went on a mad trolley dash around Ikea for "bibs, changing mats, everything we needed".

On the top floor, there is something called, rather formally, the Pre-School Portrait Playroom. "It's just full of things that little ones can jump on and shriek and squeak and enjoy themselves,"

says Ms Frith, "which means parents can relax a bit as well."

Outside there is plenty of space - gardens and the wilderness area, complete with fort - where 2,000 visitors can be absorbed quite easily.

Because her own mother is visually impaired, Ms Frith is particularly keen on making things accessible.

"In the Making Faces area, there are lots of things to touch and feel," she says.

But while everything is being done to make Beningbrough friendly, welcoming and interesting for everyone, the serious work still goes on behind the scenes all year round. "We still have the work of conservation. That is still our central responsibility."

One of the perks of a job at Beningbrough is that Ms Frith lives on the estate.

"When I moved, I sent all my friends postcards of the hall, saying it was my new home, not actually mentioning that mine is really just a small cottage."

When not enjoying the pleasures of home - "there are a number of families with children living here, so it has a good atmosphere" - she and her partner are to be found rock climbing or travelling on a grand scale. Next year is either the Tibetan plateau or the Gobi desert. "I want to do everything,"

she says.

In the meantime, for Ms Frith, Beningbrough, and all such houses, are about the sense of history, a sense of connection with people from the past.

As an archaeologist, her speciality was the metal trade and the monasteries. "I never wanted to dig round pyramids or Roman ruins, I was always absorbed by British history," says Ms Frith.

Consequently, she spent a lot of time digging holes at Fountains Abbey. "It's amazing what a lump of lead can tell you," she says.

In among the mud and rain, there were always magical moments. "I remember finding a piece of pottery, just a scrap, but with a clear thumb print of the potter. I put my thumb on the print and there was that immediate connection with the person who had made that pot thousands of years earlier.

Magic."

The same is true of Beningbrough, and not just the Georgian history.

"During the last war, the hall was used as an RAF base. They got up to all sorts here, including riding motorbikes up and down the main staircase," says Ms Frith.

"They had billiard tables here and when they were playing - because nearly everyone smoked in those days - they would put their cigarettes down on the nearest mantelpiece, shelf or rail. And they left burn marks. Many of them are still there.

"You can put your finger on them and think of those RAF men playing billiards in their breaks between duty. It's a direct link with the past, another part of the Beningbrough story.

"Houses like this are full of stories.

We just help to tell them."

● Beningbrough Hall and gardens, eight miles north of York, is signposted from the A19. In partnership with the National Portrait Gallery, the hall has 120 portraits of 18th century people.

For details, call 01904-472027 or visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk.