The National Trust was established in 1895, the year Oscar Wilde stood trial for gross indecency. Hall recreates the suffocating, hypocritical atmosphere of late 19th-century England; of London, in particular. But did hard-pressed queer Victorians create the National Trust? Not exactly. It's true that one of its founders, Octavia Hill, lived with a woman.
A magnificent leather and golden silk slipper believed to have once been worn, then lost, or given away by King James II, is going on display at Killerton, a mansion in Devon which houses the National Trust's costume collection. He is said to have worn the slippers when visiting Coventry in in 1687, where a grand banquet was held in his honour, and may have given them to one of his hosts.
The mystery of when, how and perhaps most importantly why a giant naked figure was carved into a dizzyingly steep hillside in the English West Country has been a source of wonder and intrigue for centuries. Future generations may come closer to solving the puzzle of the Cerne Giant after the National Trust stepped in to buy 340 acres of land around the 55-metre (180ft) figure. The planned purchase is expected to clear the way for more archaeological investigations around Britain's largest chalk hill figure, which looms over the rolling Dorset landscape.
