124 listed buildings, 5 of them Grade I

Church of St BartholomewGrade I listedTunstall HouseGrade I listedChurch of St John the BaptistGrade I listedThe Three Hats InnGrade II listedGreat Grovehurst FarmhouseGrade II listed+7See 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 34 entries were listed in 1951, 1 of the 5 Grade I buildings among them. 49 came in 1974, in the national resurvey of the 1970s and 80s. 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.

Murston Old Church, Sittingbourne

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.

Lewis Theobald

John Freeman

Charles Henry Caffin

Fred Whibley

Arthur Gibson

John Whibley

1650170017501800185019001950

Lewis Theobald1688–1744 · English editor and author (1688–1744)

Charles Henry Caffin1854–1918 · American art critic

AG

Arthur Gibson1863–1895 · British cricketer (1863-1895)

JW

John Whibley1892–1972 · English footballer (1892-1972)

JF

John Freeman1833–1913 · Recipient of the Victoria Cross

Fred Whibley1855–1919 · Trader

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

The official list counts 124 listed buildings in Sittingbourne, 5 of them Grade I, including Church of St Bartholomew, Bobbing. Only 21 of the 206 towns nearest its size have more Grade I buildings. On High Street alone there are 51 listed buildings. Its older streets lie in 4 conservation areas, the first designated in 1969.

Most entries on the list, 77%, are houses, terraces and villas. Lewis Theobald (1688), Charles Henry Caffin (1854) and Arthur Gibson (1863) are among the 6 people born here before 1900. The rest is about typical: per resident it sits near the middle of UK towns; it also has a scheduled monument; and 14% of its homes were built before 1919, close to the 15% in the typical UK town.