Elsewhere, complaints about the Trust's undemocratic character continue to be repeated, notably in Paula Weideger's Gilding the Acorn (1994), published to coincide with its centenary. At the same time, another strand of criticism has emerged in the conservative press. Having benefited from "socialistic legislation', the National Trust (one journalist argues) 'has replaced family homes with palaces run by bureaucrats' who treat the former owners in a high-handed fashion. Country houses, in this view, should be in private hands not 'nationalised ownership' (Charles Clover, Spectator, 2 November 1991 p.10). What links populist critics such as Weideger with their conservative counterparts is their common complaint that Trust properties have an unlived- in, museum-like quality: both claim that nothing can replace the instinctive