It was designed as an exhibition to promote the role of women and celebrate the life of Margaret Armstrong, the wife of a 19th-century industrialist. But instead of filling her grand country hall with artefacts about her life, the National Trust decided to cover up artworks that featured men.

Visitors described the project as “ridiculous” after paintings were covered with sheets and statues wrapped in bags. It was reported that staff at Cragside in Northumberland had to empty the comments box several times a day due to the volume of complaints.

Now the National Trust has admitted the idea backfired. It said the project was “not about censoring art or being politically correct” but was designed to encourage visitors to “look at the collection differently and stimulate debate”.

“Sometimes it doesn’t work as we intended and we accept the feedback we have received,” the trust said.

A spokesman said on Tuesday: “We’ve had a mix of positive and negative comments. We’re going to look at it closely and it will be reviewed thoroughly.”

The trust received a £114,748 government grant from Victoria Atkins, the minister for women, to promote its “women and industry programme” at Cragside and two other projects.

Visitors who had paid up to £49.50 for a family ticket said they were “baffled” that much of the work produced by men or featuring male subjects was shielded from view.

One visitor, Jim Herbert, told BBC Newcastle: “Having paid a touch under £50 to get in, it is disappointing not to be able to see the whole collection, and I fail to see how hiding exhibits deemed as male can do anything to encourage female achievement.

“I can’t help but think that an extra exhibition recognising the achievements of women would be more constructive.”

The six-week exhibition, titled The Great Cragside Cover-up, was billed as an installation by the artists Kate Stobbart, Rob Blazey and Harriet Sutcliffe. The trust said the installation was well publicised and visitors should have been aware prior to entry.

In an online video that has since been taken down by the National Trust, Stobbart and Sutcliffe said they wanted to highlight the life of Lady Armstrong but could not find enough about it to make an exhibition.

Stobbart said: “We wanted to try and bring out Lady Margaret and every time we tried to do that we failed really, because conversations with the experts here, and our own conversations when we were back in Newcastle, inevitably led to Lord Armstrong and not very much on Lady Armstrong.

“That seemed to be the biggest message: Cragside was, or is, all about Lord Armstrong and not really about the many, many women who worked here and the many, many women who worked in his factories.”

Sutcliffe, an artist and a PhD researcher at Newcastle University, said in the video that the artists were “frustrated” by not being able to showcase Lady Armstrong’s life. “We thought actually by concealing some of the male objects and artefacts within the house, it might shift the lens slightly so that these women would finally have a space for three weeks to shine,” she said.