129 listed buildings, 4 of them Grade I

Berkeley CastleGrade I listedChurch of St Mary the VirginGrade I listedGatehouse to West at Berkeley CastleGrade I listedTower of Church of St MaryGrade I listedJenner Hut, In Garden of the ChantryGrade II* listed+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.

Of the 129 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 31 entries were listed in 1952, 1 of the 4 Grade I buildings among them. 88 came in 1985, in the national resurvey of the 1970s and 80s. Only 0 have been added in the last 15 years.

1 registered park or garden

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 de Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley

Elizabeth Beauchamp, Countess of Warwick

Maurice Berkeley, 3rd Baron Berkeley

Edward Jenner

George Seymour

James Phipps

Charles Belcher

Maurice Neale

John Fitzhardinge Paul Butler

120013501500165018001950

Edward Jenner1749–1823 · English physician, scientist and pioneer of vaccination (1749–1823)

James Phipps1788–1853 · English child given cowpox vaccine

GS

George Seymour1787–1870 · Royal Navy admiral of the fleet (1787-1870)

TB

Thomas de Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley1245–1321 · English baron and diplomat

EW

Elizabeth Beauchamp, Countess of Warwick1386–1423 · English countess

CB

Charles Belcher1872–1938 · Cricketer (1872-1938)

MB

Maurice Berkeley, 3rd Baron Berkeley1435–1506 · English landowner

JB

John Fitzhardinge Paul Butler1888–1916 · Recipient of the Victoria Cross

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

For its size, Berkeley has more listed heritage than 95% of UK towns. All told, the list holds 129 listed buildings, 4 of them Grade I. Its Grade I buildings cluster together: 4 of them stand within 400 m of Berkeley Castle. Only 9 of the 1,412 towns nearest its size have more Grade I buildings.

On High Street alone there are 21 listed buildings. A conservation area protects part of it. Most entries on the list, 52%, are churches, chapels and priories. The rest is about typical: 22% of its homes were built before 1919, close to the 15% in the typical UK town.