A row has erupted over scones at the National Trust after the organisation was accused of going 'woke' by 'secretly' making all of its scones vegan. 

A British staple, scones are available at 280 National Trust tearooms across the country, including the organisation's headquarters in Swindon. 

But even though National Trust scones have been made with margarine instead of butter for years, and although recipes for all cakes and scones served by the Trust are posted on its website, some have taken objection to them after discovering the lack of dairy product. 

The Daily Mail ran with the headline 'National Trust secretly makes all of its scones vegan - while critics condemn 'woke' use of vegetable-based spread instead of butter' and GB News accused the organisation of "holding our heritage in contempt" with the move. 

But appearing on Radio Five Live, the director of communications for the National Trust, Celia Richardson, laughed off this latest attack over 'wokery'. 

She said: "Our scones have been this way for more than a decade, in fact, I've had a team searching around this morning (April 1) for when we didn't use vegetable spread or margarine in our scones, and they can't find anything from the last 10 years.

"And they say that it's secret, they've gone from saying that we are virtue signalling, to it now being secret, you can't virtue signal secretly. 

"It would be against the law to have secret recipes, we've all got to comply with allergy legislation these days and we're very happy to do that."

In response to the article, a spokesman for the trust said: 'Our cafes serve millions of customers a year and we work hard to accommodate dietary needs and allergies. Our scones are made with vegetable-based spread.

"This means our iconic plain and fruit scones can be enjoyed by those with dairy allergies and vegans."

Comments within the Mail article said that "critics had accused the National Trust of a 'virtual signalling betrayal", and added that customers had said the scones "taste like 'dry biscuits".

Campaign group Restore Trust, which aims to rid the charity of its 'divisive ideologies' and 'activism' but was beaten during last year's annual general meeting candidate election, has slammed the move.

Chairman Cornelia van der Poll said: 'It is unfortunate that the National Trust can't even get scones right, let alone bigger issues such as properly looking after the properties in its care.'

This follows accusations that the National Trust has cancelled mushrooms and Christmas in recent months.