Old homes in Eton: 49% built before 1919

Lower Chapel, Eton CollegeGrade II* listedSt Christopher'sGrade II* listedStatue of Henry VI, Eton CollegeGrade II* listedThe Cock Pitt CafeGrade II* listed+1See 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.

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.

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.

The first 18 entries were listed in 1950, 1 of the 1 Grade I buildings among them. 37 came in 1973, in the national resurvey of the 1970s and 80s. Only 0 have been added in the last 15 years.

1 registered park or garden

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.

Eton is graded on each subject, but towns under 2,500 get no overall grade.

45% of homes are Victorian or older, against 16% across England and Wales. The busiest period since was 1973–82, which added 9.7% of today’s homes.

Valuation Office Agency, council tax stock of properties by build period, 31 March 2025, for the neighbourhoods (LSOAs) that make up the town, split by where their residents live. Homes with no recorded build period (77 here) are left out; 1939–44 is not a period in the data.

William Oughtred

Edward Weston

Thomas Morell

Edmund Bristow

Thomas Thellusson Carter

Philip Williams

George E. Davis

John Hawtrey

James Leigh Joynes

Donald Tovey

John Evelyn Shuckburgh

Frank Herbert Mitchell

Faith Compton Mackenzie

Geoffrey Douglas Hale Carpenter

Jack Barley

Harry Biedermann

155016001650170017501800185019001950

William Oughtred1574–1660 · English mathematician and Anglican minister (1574–1660)

Donald Tovey1875–1940 · British composer, pianist and musicologist (1875–1940)

GD

George E. Davis1850–1907 · British chemical engineer

TM

Thomas Morell1703–1784 · British scholar

JH

John Hawtrey1850–1925 · English footballer (1850-1925)

PW

Philip Williams1824–1899 · British cricketer (1824-1899)

EB

Edmund Bristow1787–1876 · British artist (1787-1876)

FM

Frank Herbert Mitchell1878–1951 · English civil servant and cricketer (1878-1951)

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

Few towns are as rich in listed heritage as Eton: per resident it has more than 90% of UK towns. In all there are 86 listed buildings, 1 of them Grade I. Its housing is old: 49% of homes date from before 1919, against 15% in the typical UK town. Only 93 of the 1,339 towns nearest its size have more Grade I buildings.

High Street alone has 39 listed buildings. A conservation area protects part of it. Of the whole list, 72% are houses, terraces and villas.