97 listed buildings, 1 of them Grade I

Haarlem MillGrade II* listedGrammar SchoolGrade II* listedFormer Miners Standard PubGrade II listedMoot HallGrade II listedGell's BedehousesGrade II listed+3See 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.

Market Place16 listed · 1 II*

St Johns Street15 listed

Coldwell Street5 listed · 1 II*

North End4 listed

Of the 97 entries, 50 are named by a street address; the rest are named buildings such as churches, halls and bridges.

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 17 entries were listed in 1950, 1 of the 1 Grade I buildings among them. 65 came in 1973, in the national resurvey of the 1970s and 80s. Only 0 have been added in the last 15 years.

World Heritage

2 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.

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.

31% of homes are Victorian or older, against 16% across England and Wales. The busiest period since was 1945–54, which added 10% 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 (58 here) are left out; 1939–44 is not a period in the data.

Eliza Fraser

Joseph Flint

John Frost

George Frost

Richard Allsop

John Cooke

George Marsden

Henry Blackwell

Lawrence Beesley

Herbert Bowmer

175017751800182518501875190019251950

Lawrence Beesley1877–1967 · British Titanic survivor (1877–1967)

JF

John Frost1847–1916 · English cricketer (1847-1916)

GF

George Frost1848–1913 · English cricketer (1848–1913)

HB

Henry Blackwell1876–1900 · English cricketer (1876-1900)

Eliza Fraser1798–1858 · British shipwreck survivor

JF

Joseph Flint1840–1912 · English cricketer (1840-1912)

RA

Richard Allsop1849–1908 · English cricketer (1849–1908)

JC

John Cooke1851–1908 · English cricketer, born 1851

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

Old houses are part of Wirksworth’s character: 32% of its homes were built before 1919, against 15% in the typical UK town. All told, the list holds 97 listed buildings, 1 of them Grade I, including St Mary's Church. For its size, it has more listed heritage than 88% of UK towns. Only 82 of the 953 towns nearest its size have more Grade I buildings.

Market Place alone has 16 listed buildings. Its older streets lie in 3 conservation areas, the first designated in 1970. Most entries on the list, 66%, are houses, terraces and villas. Beyond that, it also has 2 scheduled monuments.