83 listed buildings, 4 of them Grade II*

Parish Church of Holy TrinityGrade II* listed26-29, Chapel StreetGrade II* listedThe King's Arms Public HouseGrade II listedThe Valiant Soldier, Including Rear WingGrade II listedChapel E of parish churchScheduled monument+1See 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.

Fore Street17 listed

Chapel Street5 listed · 1 II*

Market Street5 listed

Elliott Plain3 listed

Of the 83 entries, 36 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 4 entries were listed in 1951. 40 came in 1993. Only 0 have been added in the last 15 years.

1 scheduled monument

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

Chapel E of parish church

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.

32% of homes are Victorian or older, against 16% across England and Wales. The busiest period since was the 1930s, which added 11% 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 (0 here) are left out; 1939–44 is not a period in the data.

Old houses are part of Buckfastleigh’s character: 32% of its homes were built before 1919, against 15% in the typical UK town. All told, the list holds 83 listed buildings, including Parish Church of Holy Trinity. For its size, it has more listed heritage than 89% of UK towns. Fore Street alone has 17 listed buildings.

Its older streets lie in 2 conservation areas, the first designated in 1976. Most entries on the list, 55%, are houses, terraces and villas. Otherwise the figures are ordinary: like most towns its size, it has no Grade I building; Thomas Willcocks (1877) and Albert Avery (1883) were born here before 1900; and it also has a scheduled monument.