The History of Listing

The first state protection of heritage in Britain began in 1882, with a focus on prehistoric monuments, and was limited to taking sites into government care or ‘guardianship’, forming the basis for the national heritage collections now looked after by English Heritage, Cadw (Wales) and Historic Environment Scotland. The monuments in government care were initially overseen by the first Inspector of Ancient Monuments, Lt Gen Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers (1827 – 1900), who is often described as a founding father of British archaeology.

Designation, as in the process of identifying and legally protecting significant historic sites, began following the 1913 Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendment Act. This was a watershed moment for the protection of heritage because it introduced ‘scheduling’ which widened legal protection to thousands of privately-owned sites for the first time. Shortly before the act was introduced a new government department staffed by archaeologists and architects was formed: the Ancient Monuments Branch. Initially, scheduling focused on archaeological sites and historic monuments, such as prehistoric and Roman sites and ruined castles and abbeys, which became ‘scheduled monuments’.   

By 1939, 3,000 historic sites had been protected in this way; today there are around 20,000 scheduled monuments on the NHLE (not all of which are ancient). However, prior to the Second World War, it was not possible to protect inhabited houses through designation. Furthermore, scheduling was largely suitable for monumentalised sites, such as ruined castles and abbeys, or below-ground archaeological remains, and less so for historic buildings in active use; for the latter ‘listing’ was to be subsequently introduced.  

The statutory listing of historic buildings originated during the Second World War from a salvage scheme to repair and preserve bomb-damaged buildings. Faced with extensive bombing to Britain’s town and cities through enemy air raids, a salvage scheme was drawn up to provide emergency repairs to buildings of ‘historic interest’. The government introduced a system whereby Air Raid Precautions Controllers were to report damage to historic buildings, which could then subsequently be repaired or salvaged. However, they first need to be provided with lists of these buildings in each area.  

In order to draw up these lists, 300 architects were appointed to identify the historic buildings. The wartime lists included addresses, descriptions, location maps and drawings or photographs of historic buildings and served as the basis to identify those to be repaired or salvaged following bomb damage. The specific criteria included medieval buildings, good examples of buildings up to 1750, and outstanding buildings from 1750 to 1850. This salvage scheme proved its worth following heavy damage inflicted on historic towns and cities during the 1942 Baedeker raids, allowing many historic buildings to be saved.  

The precedent created by the ‘salvage lists’, as well as growing sentiments for the protection of historic buildings after the losses of the war, provided the impetus for new legislative measures. In November 1944, the Town and Country Planning Act was passed which empowered the government to create a national list of buildings of special architectural or historic interest for the first time, thereby providing the first significant statutory protection for inhabited dwelling houses.  

Additional measures were subsequently included in the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act, and listing would form an essential part of post-war reconstruction; identifying buildings to be restored as well as providing a guide for those that needed to be safeguarded during redevelopment. 

The salvage lists formed the initial basis for the first national listing survey. This pioneer survey, then under the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, took nearly 25 years to complete and produced 120,000 List entries. The List entries were mostly for medieval churches, country houses, and pre-1750 buildings. The information in these first List entries was rather brief and they were typically drawn up without the benefit of an internal inspection. 

Due to intensive urban redevelopment in the 1960s, the Minister of Housing and Local Government initiated the first resurvey in 1968. The survey focussed first on 39 historic cities and towns whose centres were particularly threatened by post-war redevelopment. Rural areas were not well covered, and the list entry descriptions were still very brief. 

From December 1970, List entries were published in spiral-bound paper volumes with green covers nicknamed ‘Greenbacks’. The civil parish became the basic administrative unit of the Greenback. At this time, the selection criteria were revised and the concept of group value – the listing of a building due to its value within a group of buildings of special historical interest – was greatly strengthened. 

On 23 August 1980, the demolition of the Art Deco style Firestone Factory in Brentford, London - a building of considerable architectural quality - created great controversy.  It sparked Michael Heseltine’s decision (as Secretary of State for the Environment) to begin a second resurvey. Up until 1984, inspectors from the Department of the Environment supervised the work of numerous trained fieldworkers in carrying out the resurvey. These inspectors were then transferred to English Heritage when it was formed following the 1983 National Heritage Act.  

The fieldworkers undertaking the national resurvey of historic buildings were trained and equipped with a manual on how to choose a building and how to write the List entry based on the mnemonic “B DAMP FISHES”:

• Building type
• Date
• Architect
• Material
• Plan
• Facades
• Interior
• Subsidiary features
• History
• Extra information
• Sources 

The resurvey extended the range of building types and structures recommended for listing, for instance including historic milestones and tombstones. It also extended the date range to include more recent buildings, such as lidos, airport buildings and cinemas, where these were of special interest. 

It was still not unusual for List entries from this period to be relatively short and only refer to the exterior of the building. The brevity of these List entries was partly due to the vast scale of the resurvey, sometimes referred to as a ‘modern Domesday’, and the numerous buildings that had to be visited.  

In 1987, the date criteria for the selection of historic buildings for listing was amended to clarify that buildings less than 30 years old are not usually considered for listing, although some more recent buildings of outstanding quality (usually equivalent to Grade I or II*) may be listed. 

At about this time, English Heritage began a Monuments Protection Programme (MPP), to review and expand the number of archaeological sites and monuments given protection as scheduled monuments. This was a major programme which had a considerable legacy towards the protection of our archaeological heritage in England, until it ended in 2005.  

From 1989, a review of the buildings listed in urban areas was undertaken through the ‘Urban List Review’ with the new List entries published in spiral-bound volumes with blue covers called ‘Bluebacks’, which also incorporated content from the older ‘Greenbacks’. All paper copies of the List were subsequently converted into digital format but were not yet publicly accessible.  

From 2005 onwards, List entries were also reformatted to include a History section, Details (Description) and Reasons for Designation, setting out the significance of each site. Since 2013, new legislation has enabled List entries for buildings to specify the extent of listing and exclude modern additions and/or modern internal fixtures and fittings where this is appropriate.  

In 2011, the official List entries were made publicly available online as the National Heritage List for England (NHLE). This was a major achievement in bringing all the nationally important heritage assets together in one searchable database. In 2024, the National Heritage List for England comprised: nearly 380,000 entries for listed buildings, , about 20,000 entries for scheduled monuments, around 1,700 registered parks and gardens, 57 protected wrecks and 47 registered battlefields, as well as 19 World Heritage Sites. 19 World Heritage Sites.

In April 2015, English Heritage separated into two organisations; the English Heritage charity which cares for the National Heritage Collection of more than 400 historic places (guardianship sites), and Historic England, the public body that looks after England's historic environment and helps people understand, value and care for historic places. Historic England is responsible for providing listing and scheduling advice and recommendations to the Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) for their decision, as well as administering the designation process.   

Since 2016, Historic England has invited everybody to share their snapshots and stories about the protected places on the National Heritage List for England (NHLE). Your view of a place is as unique as you are, so every snapshot and story you add to the project is an important piece of the picture. And the more pieces of the picture we have, the better we can protect what makes these places special. 

In 2018, Historic England commissioned Matthew Saunders to work with the Statutory Amenity Societies (such as The Victorian Society) to review certain aspects of our listing work, including the NHLE, our process and the selection criteria, and to produce a report outlining his findings.  The report, published in 2021, includes a series of 43 recommendations for us to consider. Since then, we have made good progress on a number of these recommendations. You can read the report and our response here.