31 listed buildings, 1 of them Grade I

Pownall Hall (School)Grade II* listedFormer Friends Meeting HouseGrade II* listedFormer George and Dragon Public HouseGrade II listedBridge over River BollinGrade II listedFulshaw HallGrade II listed+2See 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. 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).

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 2 entries were listed in 1951, 1 of the 1 Grade I buildings among them. 19 came in 1984, in the national resurvey of the 1970s and 80s. Only 0 have been added in the last 15 years.

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.

Samuel Finney

Arthur Napier

Billy Grantham

Helen Tolson

Muriel Nichol

170017501800185019001950

Helen Tolson1888–1955 · British suffragette

AN

Arthur Napier1853–1916 · British philologist (1853–1916)

SF

Samuel Finney1719–1798 · English miniature-painter. (1719-1798)

Muriel Nichol1893–1983 · English Labour Party politician (1893-1983)

BG

Billy Grantham1880–1942 · British athletics competitor (1880-1942)

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

The official list counts 31 listed buildings in Wilmslow, 1 of them Grade I, including St Bartholomew's Church. Only 87 of the 389 towns nearest its size have more Grade I buildings. A conservation area protects part of it. Of the whole list, 52% are houses, terraces and villas.

Helen Tolson (1888), Arthur Napier (1853) and Samuel Finney (1719) are among the 5 people born here before 1900. More than half went on the list in a single year, 1984: 19 of 31. Otherwise the figures are ordinary: per resident it sits near the middle of UK towns; and 13% of its homes were built before 1919, close to the 15% in the typical UK town.