389 listed buildings, 9 of them Grade I

41, Friar GateGrade I listedSt Helens House Including Attached Former School Buildings and Front WallGrade I listedLivesages AlmshousesGrade II listedEngine HouseGrade II listedHandyside Arch Bridge (Over River Derwent)Grade II listed+49See 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.

c. 1850

c. 1895

1898

c. 1910

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).

Friar Gate35 listed · 1 Grade I · 5 II*

Iron Gate16 listed

Vernon Street10 listed

Ashbourne Road9 listed

Sadler Gate9 listed · 1 II*

St Marys Gate9 listed · 1 II*

Wardwick6 listed · 2 II*

Market Place5 listed

Church Street3 listed

Corn Market3 listed

Cornhill3 listed

Green Lane3 listed

Of the 389 entries, 172 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 60 entries were listed in 1952, 7 of the 9 Grade I buildings among them. 219 came in 1977, in the national resurvey of the 1970s and 80s. Only 16 have been added in the last 15 years.

World Heritage

6 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.

Anglo-Scandinavian high cross shaft in the churchyard of St Werburgh's Church, Spondon

Darley Abbey (remains of)

RomanLittlechester Roman site

RomanRoman bath house at Parker's Piece

RomanSection of Rykneld Street Roman road and remains of Bronze Age cemetery at Littleover

St Mary's Bridge

3 registered parks and gardens

Derby ArboretumGrade II*

Nottingham Road CemeteryGrade II

The Old Cemetery, DerbyGrade II

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.

John Cotton

Andrew Planche

Joseph Wright of Derby

John Raphael Smith

William Billingsley

John Mawe

Edward Blore

Henry Lark Pratt

Constance Fox Talbot

Herbert Spencer

William de Wiveleslie Abney

Ernest William Hobson

John Atkinson Hobson

Ernest Ellis Clark

Jack Robinson

Nina Salaman

Alfred Edward Goodey

George Simpson

Ernest Townsend

Horace Bailey

155016001650170017501800185019001950

Herbert Spencer1820–1903 · English philosopher and political theorist (1820–1903)

Joseph Wright of Derby1734–1797 · 18th-century British painter (1734–1797)

John Atkinson Hobson1858–1940 · English economist, social scientist and critic of imperialism (1858-1…

WA

William de Wiveleslie Abney1843–1920 · British astronomer, chemist and photographer (1843–1920)

John Mawe1764–1829 · British mineralogist and dealer in minerals (1764–1829)

Edward Blore1787–1879 · British architect (1787–1879)

Horace Bailey1881–1960 · English footballer (1881-1960)

Alfred Edward Goodey1878–1945 · Philanthropist and art collector (1878-1945)

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

The official list counts 389 listed buildings in Derby, 9 of them Grade I. Its Grade I buildings cluster together: 5 of them stand within 400 m of Derby Cathedral. Friar Gate alone has 35 listed buildings. Its older streets lie in 15 conservation areas, the first designated in 1969.

Most entries on the list, 64%, are houses, terraces and villas. Herbert Spencer (1820), Joseph Wright of Derby (1734) and John Atkinson Hobson (1858) are among the 156 people born here before 1900. It also has 6 scheduled monuments, the archaeology and ruins the law protects. The rest is about typical: it has 9 Grade I buildings, about typical for a town its size (the middle one has 9); per resident it sits near the middle of UK towns; and 16% of its homes were built before 1919, close to the 15% in the typical UK town.