National Trust sites to take euro

Visitors to some of Britain's best-known attractions, including Stonehenge and Fountain's Abbey, will be able to buy tickets and gifts with the euro after a vote by the National Trust.

More than 60,000 members of the conservation charity, which last week announced it had recruited its three millionth member, agreed to accept the new currency at all attractions at its annual meeting yesterday.

The trust also voted overwhelmingly to accept the celebrity cook Clarissa Dickson Wright and the Tory MP and close friend of Prince Charles, Nicholas Soames, on to its 52-member council.

Ms Dickson Wright says her chief interest is to improve the quality and regional authent-icity of National Trust food.

The vote to accept the euro follows a pilot project at several attractions. It will soon be taken nationwide, but only after the tills are converted to the currency.