24 listed buildings, 1 of them Grade I

Church of All SaintsGrade I listedIlkeston SchoolGrade II* listedBall and Son Limited FactoryGrade II listedGreens LockGrade II listedTown 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 3 entries were listed in 1963, 1 of the 1 Grade I buildings among them. 18 came in 1986, 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.

16% of homes are Victorian or older, against 16% across England and Wales. The busiest period since was 1945–54, which added 12% 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 (380 here) are left out; 1939–44 is not a period in the data.

John Blackner

Pierrepont Mundy

John Paxton

Thomas Attenborough

John Tilson

George Ratcliffe

Walter Sugg

Frank Sugg

Solomon Hardy

Silas Hardy

Herbert Bostock

Frank Wright

Frank Nuttall

Allen Hardy

Arthur Barton

Harry Sewell

Jim Baker

James Barker

Roland Bainton

Brian Duncan Shaw

175017751800182518501875190019251950

Frank Sugg1862–1933 · Cricket player of England. (1862-1933)

JB

Jim Baker1891–1966 · English footballer (1891-1966)

SH

Solomon Hardy1863–1931 · English cricketer (1863-1931)

AB

Arthur Barton1874–1949 · English cricketer (1874-1949)

TA

Thomas Attenborough1833–1907 · English cricketer (1833–1907)

SH

Silas Hardy1867–1905 · English cricketer (1867-1905)

HB

Herbert Bostock1869–1954 · English cricketer (1869-1954)

JB

James Barker1892–1947 · British athlete (1892–1947)

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

Old houses are part of Ilkeston’s character: 25% of its homes were built before 1919, against 15% in the typical UK town. All told, the list holds 24 listed buildings, 1 of them Grade I, including Church of All Saints. A conservation area has protected part of it since 1979.

Frank Sugg (1862), Jim Baker (1891) and Solomon Hardy (1863) are among the 22 people born here before 1900. More than half went on the list in a single year, 1986: 18 of 24. The rest is about typical: it has one Grade I building, about typical for a town its size (the middle one has 1); and per resident it sits near the middle of UK towns.