The early National Trust reflected current concerns about national identies. Small-scale buildings, acquired 1895–1910, demonstrate a desire to monumentalise English political, religious (Anglican) and literary traditions for English-speaking peoples at home and abroad, particularly in America. Its active, though overlooked, founders include Liberal politicians such as James Bryce (Britain's ambassador to Washington). Its buildings had antiquarian appeal but seeing them only in terms of their architectural history or regional characteristics overlooks conscious attempts to use architecture as historical evidence for a vision of an English life and social order, as both that order at home and England's status abroad altered.