please empty your brain below

I once found myself in the same situation at a NT property and they happily did a postcode lookup to confirm that I was still a member. Obviously too late here, but maybe useful for you or others in the future.
I think of Grantham mainly as the place near to which Mallard set its steam speed record.
Grantham town centre's retail decline appears to have been accelerated by a ring of just-beyond-the-centre retail parks, (or car parks with tin sheds, as a colleague once referred to them). Whether this was a deliberate planning policy or resulted from planning appeals, I do not know, but Grantham's retail heart should be stronger than it is. It's quite a long way to the next town with comparable or better facilities. The population is smaller than I would have guessed though.
I may be barking up the wrong tree here, but I think I detect a slight "Beaux Arts" look to that Guildhall's tower. Not unlike one atop the station building in Maputo, Mozambique.
Extra sublime writing today. Ta.
Perhaps the best pub in Grantham was missed - the nicely named Nobody Inn, well recommended if it survived the COVID lockdown.

dg writes: still open, but nobody in.
A good gadabout!
Agree with the first comment about the NT's ability to look up membership. But I can quite understand your reluctance to walk a 4-mile round trip on the off-chance!
I made a similar day trip to Grantham a few years ago, walked up to Belton Hall and came to much the same conclusions about the town's slightly 'seen-better-days' vibe. I recall the museum contained interesting details about the story, personalities and fates of the participants in the famed Dambusters raid.
The museum is football/WW2 (& Dambusters)/Thatcher/Newton/WW1(& pioneering policewoman) and out.

It's not big but it is free and it's better than many.
Interesting post. Grantham is one of those places that many of us must have passed through on a train , but very few will have visited.

I'm glad I'm not the beekeeper having to work on that hive. It must be a nightmare up a ladder trying to lift supers on and off.
In the 1960s, the National Trust had a national policy of trusting anyone who said they had left their card at home. That was when it was believed that anyone posh enough to be interested in visiting a Stately Home would automatically be trustworthy. The policy was reversed around 1970, justified by claims that it was being misused. This was of course before the wonders of the internet made membership data easily available to staff, as I suppose it is now.
You found a hill. Well done. It actually looks like a nice town but Grantham is always somewhere I have negative feelings about as it seems to be somewhere I get stuck for hours when the rail service collapses. I think the record was a 5 and a half hour delay which meant finally getting back to London Kings Cross at 3:30am.
2nd vote for the 'just go and have a chat with the entrance staff', in doing so I somehow, cardless, managed to get my wife and I and our car into a NT site around 30 miles from London without the necessary pre-booking earlier in the year. They are very tolerant, as long as you are on the system and they aren't over busy. And you smile. They seem to like it when you smile.
As Cornish Cockney said, I guessed waving my expired NT card would probably work, but it wasn't worth the risk of a 4 mile round trip during a four hour visit.
I do remember, quite a few years ago, stopping in Grantham for a wander around the town The church tower was open to visitors. So up I went and made my way around the base of the spire ... wonderful view.
An excellent blog post. Grantham sounds similar to so many smaller or medium sized towns dotted around the country: probably not worth travelling a long distance to visit but, if you do happen to be nearby, will often reward the visitor with some unexpected treasures such as an interesting church or a small local history museum.
We were fortunate to see Gaia in Ely Cathedral back in July.

Very impressive even in a much bigger space than at St. Wulfram's.
I saw Gaia on display in The Centre at Milton Keynes. I was underwhelmed. Mainly I think because it wasn't high enough off the floor to appreciate it properly. It looks much more impressive in your photo.
I wonder if the "blue" pubs thing has anything to do with thename of the near-ish "blue monkey" brewery.. which I can recommend










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