179 listed buildings, 3 of them Grade I

Penrith CastleGrade I listedParish Church of St AndrewGrade I listedDockray HallGrade I listedGateway to Cemetery with Pair of Integral ChapelsGrade II listedBarclay's BankGrade II listed+19See 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.

1906

1907

1909

c. 1930

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

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).

King Street9 listed

Arthur Street8 listed

Devonshire Street8 listed · 1 II*

Great Dockray8 listed

Corn Market5 listed

Albert Street4 listed

Little Dockray4 listed

Middlegate4 listed

Queen Street4 listed

St Andrew's Churchyard4 listed

Of the 179 entries, 73 are named by a street address; the rest are named buildings such as churches, halls and bridges.

Search the rest on Historic England’s list →

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 36 entries were listed in 1951, 3 of the 3 Grade I buildings among them. 123 came in 1983, in the national resurvey of the 1970s and 80s. Only 4 have been added in the last 15 years.

4 scheduled monuments

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

RomanRoman road and enclosures SE of Frenchfield

Strickland's Pele Tower and Penrith Castle

The Giant's Grave - Two Anglian cross-shafts and four hogback stones in St Andrew's churchyard, Penrith

The Giant's Thumb - Anglian high cross in St Andrew's churchyard, Penrith

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.

Thomas Nelson

John Littlejohn

Joseph Hodgson

John Lamb

Jacob Thompson

Walter Lamb

Anne Ireland

Henry Alleyne Nicholson

Alfred Lamb

Edmund Beswick

John Lester

William Thomas Shirley

Charles Graham Robertson

Fred Thompson Bowerbank

Eva Hasell

1650170017501800185019001950

Henry Alleyne Nicholson1844–1899 · British palaeontologist and zoologist (1844-1899)

John Lester1871–1969 · American cricketer (1871-1969)

Fred Thompson Bowerbank1880–1960 · Doctor, military medical administrator

Joseph Hodgson1788–1869 · British physician; (1788-1869)

Anne Ireland1842–1893 · Journalist (1842-93)

JT

Jacob Thompson1806–1879 · British artist (1806-1879)

WL

Walter Lamb1825–1906 · (1825-1906) businessman and pastoralist

Charles Graham Robertson1879–1954 · English soldier (1879–1954); recipient of the Victoria Cross

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

Per resident, Penrith has more listed heritage than 86% of UK towns. All told, the list holds 179 listed buildings, 3 of them Grade I, including Penrith Castle. Only 33 of the 517 towns nearest its size have more Grade I buildings. On King Street alone there are 9 listed buildings.

Its older streets lie in 2 conservation areas, the first designated in 1975. Most entries on the list, 72%, are houses, terraces and villas. Henry Alleyne Nicholson (1844), John Lester (1871) and Fred Thompson Bowerbank (1880) are among the 15 people born here before 1900. The rest is about typical: it also has 4 scheduled monuments; and 19% of its homes were built before 1919, close to the 15% in the typical UK town.