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The National Trust had free entry on most of their properties last weekend, so we thought we would take advantage and visit Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. We had never been before and it had often intrigued us as you can see it as you travel up and down the M1. Anyway we set off early, but it soon became apparent as we approached from the motorway, that there were many other like minded people. We parked up in a virtual quagmire created by the rain and vehicles of people on the previous day and headed for the house. It was obvious that if we wanted to avoid a really long wait we had better get in the queue sooner rather than later.
As you can imagine then there were hoards of people going round the house. It seemed nearly everyone had a camera and was clicking away getting shots of the interior, tapestries, paintings, furniture. Some were using small digicams, some had dSLR's. Mostly they seemed to be using built in flash and pop up flash. The ambient light was low, especially as the NT put up scrim type curtains to keep the sun out. It occurred to me that the results these people were getting could not have been great, which is largely why I didn't bother to take any in the house. But then it struck me, why were they taking all these photos, what were they going to do with them. They were not considered shots, they were not using tripods (I doubt the NT would allow them anyway) the flash would have been totally inadequate for anything half decent, so what was the point. Not only this but the volume of visitors made photography difficult anyway.
For my own part, and rather tongue in cheek I'll admit, I consider every shot I take to be a potential masterpeice
and so I just could not see the value in trying to get anything worthy, and that I would even want to show here. I took the E-P1 and ended up with 7 exterior shots 
mostly of the crocuses and snowdrops, but here is one taken at the side of the house.
I believe the new NT photography rules are that you are allowed to take photos IF the property isn't too crowded and you don't hold up other people. You are certainly not allowed to use flash or any sort of support.