278 listed buildings, 5 of them Grade I

Church of St GeorgeGrade I listedMax GateGrade I listedBandstand and surrounding twelve park benchesGrade II listedThe FoundryGrade II listedNo 39 Including Adjacent BarnGrade II listed+21See 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.

1771

1903

1903

c. 1904

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).

High West Street36 listed · 3 II*

High East Street30 listed · 1 II*

Glyde Path Road11 listed

Colliton Street10 listed

Cornhill8 listed · 1 II*

Fordington High Street8 listed

South Street8 listed · 1 II*

Durngate Street5 listed

Icen Way5 listed

North Square5 listed

Princes Street4 listed

Church Street3 listed

Of the 278 entries, 153 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 53 entries were listed in 1950, 4 of the 5 Grade I buildings among them. 208 came in 1975, in the national resurvey of the 1970s and 80s. Only 4 have been added in the last 15 years.

7 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.

RomanColliton Park Roman house

RomanDorchester Roman walls

RomanHenge, Romano-British amphitheatre and Civil War fieldworks known collectively as Maumbury Rings

RomanOuter defences of Roman town, W of St Genevieve's Convent

RomanPart of Roman, Saxon, and medieval town in grounds of Wollaston House

RomanPoundbury Camp, associated monuments and section of Roman aqueduct.

PrehistoricRemains of Neolithic enclosure and associated features at Max Gate

2 registered parks and gardens

Borough Gardens, DorchesterGrade II

Town Walks, DorchesterGrade 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.

Thomas Purchase

William Biles

Charlotte Nooth

Horatio Mosley Moule

Sydney Smith

Handley Moule

Sir Frederick Treves, 1st Baronet

Tom Roberts

Francis William Galpin

Edgar Amphlett

Harold Nelson

John Soundy

Albert Reginald Powys

Llewelyn Powys

William Hiscock

Wilfred Ernest Young

Dorothy Jane (Thea) Phillips

Ronald Good

155016001650170017501800185019001950

Tom Roberts1856–1931 · Australian artist (1856-1931)

Sir Frederick Treves, 1st Baronet1853–1923 · British surgeon and writer (1853-1923)

EA

Edgar Amphlett1867–1931 · English fencer (1867–1931)

RG

Ronald Good1896–1992 · British botanist (1896–1992)

Handley Moule1841–1920 · British bishop (1841–1920)

Francis William Galpin1858–1945 · Church of England clergyman, musicologist, and antiquary

Albert Reginald Powys1881–1936 · British architect

Llewelyn Powys1884–1939 · English novelist (1884–1939)

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

Measured per resident, Dorchester has more listed heritage than 89% of UK towns. In all there are 278 listed buildings, 5 of them Grade I, including Church of St George. Its Grade I buildings cluster together: 3 of them stand within 400 m of St Peter's Church. Only 20 of the 457 towns nearest its size have more Grade I buildings.

High West Street alone has 36 listed buildings. A conservation area protects part of it. Most entries on the list, 74%, are houses, terraces and villas. Otherwise the figures are ordinary: 18% of its homes were built before 1919, close to the 15% in the typical UK town.