Alfriston Clergy House of the nascent, but unknown, National Trust to see if it might be interested in taking on the Clergy House. The SPAB put him in touch with Canon Rawnsley, one of the National Trust's founders. Before the Trust decided to acquire the building another founder of the Trust, Octavia Hill, contacted the Society for advice. In her letter she said that they "will be asked to 'restore' it, so far as that odious word means preserve from decay of course we should wish to do so." This dislike of damaging 19th century restoration practices was confirmed by the National Trust
The Tale of Peter Rabbit explains, a Potter family friend and sometime poet, Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley, set Potter's tale into "rather dreadful didactic verse and submitted it, along with Potter's illustrations and half her revised manuscript, to Frederick Warne & Co.," who had been among the original rejecters. Warne editors declined Rawnsley's version "but asked to see the complete Potter manuscript" – their interest stimulated by the opportunity "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" offered the publisher to compete with the success of Helen Bannerman's wildly popular "Little Black Sambo" and other small-format children's books then on the market. When Warne inquired about the lack of