41 and 43, Woburn Street · Photo: Jeremy.Osborn · CC BY-SA 4.0

History of Ampthill · Historic England

122 listed buildings, 1 of them Grade I

Historic England counts them inside Ampthill’s built-up area, 138 for every 10,000 residents. It also has 1 scheduled monument. We have photos of 5 of its listed buildings and 2 old views of the town. 17% of its homes were built before 1919. Ampthill grades A− for history: #1 of 33 in Bedfordshire.

1Grade I 3Grade II*1scheduled monument 23on Woburn Street

Listed buildings

122

138 per 10,000 residents

Grade I

exceptional interest

Grade II*

more than special interest

Scheduled monuments

2 registered parks & gardens

Homes built before 1919

17%

typical UK town 15%

In pictures

Ampthill in 10 photos and old views

Nearly every Grade I and II* building, photographed, and the town before 1950. Tap a photo to step through them full screen.

Parish Church of St AndrewGrade I listed

Ampthill ParkGrade II park or garden

Prince of Wales InnGrade II listed

Feoffee AlmshousesGrade II listed

The Old Sun InnGrade II listed+5See all photos

Photos from Wikimedia Commons and Geograph, copied to our own server, each credited to its photographer with its licence; names open the building’s page or its official list entry.

Through time

Ampthill in old photos

2 old photos and postcards, in date order. All public domain, made before 1950.

Ampthill Methodist Church in Blake & Edgar's Picturesque Bedfordshire Series. POSTCARD 1908 — EdwardianAmpthill Methodist Church in Blake & Edgar's Picturesque Bedfordshire Series. P…Photo: Mark Crombie · Public domain

Old viewBEDFORDSHIRE AMPTHILL CHURCH STREET OLD CAR PARKED BY SHOPS PRINTED POSTCARDPhoto: Mark Crombie · Public domain

Public domain, from Wikimedia Commons, copied to our own server. Each credit opens the image’s page with its full description and history.

The map

Where Ampthill’s history is

Every Grade I and II* building, monument and historic park, over the age of each neighbourhood’s homes.

Grade IGrade II*Scheduled monumentPark or garden

Homes built before 1919, by neighbourhoodunder 10%10–25%25–50%50%+

0 of 5neighbourhoods have mostly pre-1919 homes; in the oldest, 39% were built before 1919.

Hover a dot for its name; tap one with a photo to open it.

122 listed buildings by grade

1 Grade I3 Grade II*118 Grade II

Historic England lists buildings in three grades: Grade I for buildings of exceptional interest (about 2.5% of all listed buildings), Grade II* for particularly important buildings of more than special interest (about 5.8%), and Grade II for buildings of special interest (about 91.7%). Listing protects the whole building, inside and out.

Every entry on the National Heritage List for England whose point lies inside the ONS 2022 built-up-area boundary. One list entry can cover a terrace or a group of buildings. Neighbourhood dots: the population-weighted centre of each Census 2021 output area, coloured by its neighbourhood’s (LSOA’s) share of homes built before 1919 (Valuation Office Agency, March 2025).

Grade I

The Grade I listed building in Ampthill

Buildings of exceptional interest, about 2.5% of all listed buildings. Every one is photographed. Each opens its own page, with the official list entry.

Church · listed 1971Parish Church of St AndrewPhoto: Paul Billington · CC BY-SA 2.0

Grade II*

The 3 Grade II* listed buildings in Ampthill

Particularly important buildings of more than special interest.

House · listed 1951Avenue House

House · listed 1951Dynevor House

House · listed 195137, Church Street

Historic streets

Woburn Street has the most listed buildings

Streets by the listed entries with an address on them. One entry can be a whole terrace, so long rows count once.

Woburn Street23 listed

Dunstable Street21 listed

Church Street20 listed · 1 II*

Bedford Street11 listed

Alameda4 listed

Brewery Lane3 listed

Of the 122 entries, 85 are named by a street address; the rest are named buildings such as churches, halls and bridges.

What’s protected

Most of Ampthill’s listed buildings are homes

Every listed building sorted by what its list name says it is.

Houses, terraces & villas104

Public & civic buildings5

Inns, shops & warehouses5

Walls, gates & bridges3

Street furniture3

Memorials, crosses & tombs1

Churches, chapels & priories1

104 entries (85%) are houses, terraces and villas. 1 are churches, chapels and priories, including 1 of the 1 Grade I buildings.

Buildings are sorted by words in each entry’s name (church, gate, inn, memorial…): the list’s open data has no building type. An entry named only by its address counts as a house.

Grade II

118 Grade II listed buildings

Most listed buildings are in this grade, which covers buildings of special interest. Open any building to read its official list entry.

All 118 Grade II listed buildings, A to Z

Alameda Gate Ampthill News Ampthill War Memorial, St Andrew's Churchyard Barn (At Rear of Number 41)Brandreth House Church Hall Coachhouse (Abutting to East of Number 37)Court House Easter Cottage Feoffee Almshouses Front Railings to Number 20 (Avenue House)Front Railings to Number 97 Gates House Gazebo (Queen Katherine's Summer House)Hill View Holly Walk Cottage Little Dynevor Mid Bedfordshire District Council Offices, Formerly the Ampthill Rural District Council Offices Old King's Head Inn Outbuilding Adjoining on West Poor Law Institution (The Cedars)Prince of Wales Inn Provident Place Pump in Market Place Railing in Front of Number 1 Rosebery Villa Screen and Gates to Number 28 Gates House)St Joseph's Steps Cottage The Old George Inn The Old Sun Inn The Queen's Head The Wooden House White Hart Hotel 1, Bedford Street 1, Brewery Lane 1, Chapel Lane 1, Church Street 1-5, Alameda 10 and 12, Woburn Street 10, Dunstable Street 101, Dunstable Street 103, Dunstable Street 105, Dunstable Street 108, Dunstable Street 11 and 13, Alameda 11, Woburn Street 110, Dunstable Street 113-117, Dunstable Street 119, Dunstable Street 12, 14 and 16, Church Street 12, Claridges Lane 13 and 15, Woburn Street 14, Bedford Street 15-19, Alameda 16 and 18, Bedford Street 16 and 18, Woburn Street 17, Church Street 18, Church Street 18, Claridges Lane 19 and 21, Church Street 2, Bedford Street 2, Brewery Lane 2, Woburn Street 20 and 22, Bedford Street 21A and 21B, Woburn Street 22 Church Street 23, Church Street 24 and 26, Church Street 25, Church Street 25, Woburn Street 26, Bedford Street 27 and 29, Church Street 27, Woburn Street 29, Woburn Street 3 and 5, Church Street 3, Brewery Lane 31 and 33, 35 and 35A, Church Street 31-35, Woburn Street 37, Woburn Street 38, Church Street 39, Church Street 39, Woburn Street 4, Woburn Street 4,4A and 4B, Bedford Street 40, Church Street 41 and 43, Woburn Street 41, Church Street 44, Bedford Street 45, Woburn Street 46, Dunstable Street 46-50, Bedford Street 49 and 51, Woburn Street 5, Bedford Street 5, Woburn Street 52-64, Bedford Street 53, Woburn Street 55, Woburn Street 57, Woburn Street 6, Church Street 6, Woburn Street 61, Dunstable Street 63, Dunstable Street 65, Dunstable Street 67, Dunstable Street 7, Church Street 7, Woburn Street 8, Woburn Street 81, Dunstable Street 85, Dunstable Street 88, Dunstable Street 9, Alameda 9, Church Street 92, Dunstable Street 93, 95 and 97B, Dunstable Street 96-106, Dunstable Street 97, 97A, Dunstable Street 99, Dunstable Street

Conservation areas

1 conservation area covers 18% of Ampthill

Areas the council protects as a whole: demolition and changes to how buildings look need consent, and trees are protected.

Ampthill 197041 ha

41 hain conservation areas, of 233 ha inside the built-up area.

121 of the 122 listed buildings stand in one.

Historic England’s conservation areas layer, supplied by councils (incomplete in places, so a page fact, never graded). Hectares are the part of each area inside the built-up area.

How the list grew

More than half of Ampthill’s listed buildings were added in one year, 1972

The year each building now on the list was first listed.

1972 · 751951 · 43

19501960197019801990200020102020

The first 43 entries were listed in 1951. 75 came in 1972, in the national resurvey of the 1970s and 80s. Only 1 has been added in the last 15 years.

Monuments & landscapes

Monuments, parks and gardens

Designations that overlap the town by a tenth of their area or half a hectare.

1 scheduled monument

Nationally important archaeological sites and monuments, protected by law; work on them needs consent from the Secretary of State, advised by Historic England.

Pump and signpost in Market Place

2 registered parks and gardens

Ampthill ParkGrade II

The AlamedaGrade II

History Grade

Ampthill grades A− for history

Protected heritage and the age of the town’s homes, against all UK towns.

Protected heritage, for its size and in all (131 points, 148 per 10,000 residents)More than 85% of UK towns

Homes built before 1919 (17%)More than 52% of UK towns

Two measures, each ranked against every UK town of 1,000 or more, with protected heritage counting twice as much as the age of homes. Protected heritage counts each listed building by its grade (Grade I three points, II* two, II one), each scheduled monument and battlefield two, and each registered park or garden by its grade; it is ranked both per 10,000 residents and as a total, so a village with one fine church doesn’t outrank a historic city. The second measure is the share of homes built before 1919, from the Valuation Office Agency’s council tax records. History is a character grade: it describes the town and isn’t part of the overall grade.

Born here

7 notable people born in Ampthill before 1900

Their lives on one timeline, earliest first.

Richard Nicolls

George Moore

Jemmy Moore

Thomas Brown

George Charles Crick

Cecil Lowther

John Morris

16001650170017501800185019001950

Richard Nicolls1624–1672 · First English colonial governor of New York province

Cecil Lowther1869–1940 · British Army officer and politician (1869-1940)

George Moore1820–1916 · Australian cricketer (1820-1916)

Thomas Brown1854–1936 · English cricketer, born 1854

Jemmy Moore1839–1890 · British cricketer (1839-1890)

George Charles Crick1856–1917 · British paleontologist

John Morris1880–1960 · English first-class cricketer (1880-1960)

Everyone born in Ampthill → Birthplaces from Wikidata; portraits from Wikimedia Commons.

Towns its size

Ampthill has the 94th most Grade I buildings of 705 towns its size

Places of 5,000–14,000 people outside London, by Grade I listed buildings.

Wells23

Ampthill1

#91 of 705for listed buildings per resident (138 per 10,000). Brecon, Malmesbury and Ludlow lead.

93 have more. The typical town its size has 0.

Neighbours

Listed buildings in the places around Ampthill

Town	People	Listed	Grade I	History
Ampthill	8,825	122	1	A⁻
Maulden	2,486	20	0	B⁻
Flitwick	13,668	14	1	C⁻
Flitton	1,531	13	2	B⁺
Houghton Conquest	1,867	4	1	C⁻
Lidlington	1,300	4	0	C
Westoning	2,097	7	0	C
Clophill	2,515	33	0	B⁺

In brief

Ampthill in brief

Measured per resident, Ampthill has more listed heritage than 85% of UK towns. In all there are 122 listed buildings, 1 of them Grade I, including Parish Church of St Andrew. Only 93 of the 705 towns nearest its size have more Grade I buildings. Woburn Street alone has 23 listed buildings.

A conservation area has protected part of it since 1970. Most entries on the list, 85%, are houses, terraces and villas. Of the 7 people born here before 1900, the best known include Richard Nicolls (1624), Cecil Lowther (1869) and George Moore (1820). Otherwise the figures are ordinary: it also has a scheduled monument; and 17% of its homes were built before 1919, close to the 15% in the typical UK town.

Questions about Ampthill’s history

How many listed buildings are there in Ampthill?

Historic England lists 122 buildings inside Ampthill’s built-up area: 1 Grade I, 3 Grade II* and 118 Grade II.

What are the Grade I listed buildings in Ampthill?

One: Parish Church of St Andrew.

Which street in Ampthill has the most listed buildings?

Woburn Street (23), Dunstable Street (21) and Church Street (20) have the most listed entries named by an address. One entry can be a whole terrace.

Are there scheduled monuments in Ampthill?

Yes, 1 scheduled monument, including Pump and signpost in Market Place.

How many conservation areas are there in Ampthill?

1, covering about 41 hectares of the town. The largest is Ampthill.

When were Ampthill’s buildings listed?

The first in 1951; the most, 75, in 1972.

Are there old photos of Ampthill?

Yes: 2 public-domain photos and postcards from 1908 to 1908, all on this page.

Who was born in Ampthill?

Among people born before 1900: Richard Nicolls (1624), Cecil Lowther (1869), George Moore (1820), Thomas Brown (1854) and Jemmy Moore (1839).

How old are the homes in Ampthill?

17% of homes were built before 1919 and 23% before 1940, from the Valuation Office Agency’s council tax records (March 2025).

© Historic England 2026. Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. The National Heritage List for England is the official, up-to-date register of all nationally protected historic buildings and sites in England; check an entry on Historic England’s website before relying on it.

Sources: Historic England, National Heritage List for England (listed buildings, scheduled monuments, registered parks and gardens, battlefields, World Heritage Sites), October 2026, inside the ONS 2022 built-up-area boundary · Valuation Office Agency, Council Tax: stock of properties by build period (31 March 2025) · TownRatings grades: our own summary of the data, ranked against UK towns only · Historic England conservation areas (supplied by local planning authorities; October 2026). All under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.