Accrington: 52% of homes built before 1919

Accrington Town HallGrade II* listedAccrington War MemorialGrade II* listedRailway ViaductGrade II listedChurch of St John the BaptistGrade II listedChurch of St JamesGrade 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. 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 2 entries were listed in 1966. 32 came in 1984, in the national resurvey of the 1970s and 80s. Only 2 have been added in the last 15 years.

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.

43% of homes are Victorian or older, against 16% across England and Wales. The busiest period since was 1900–18, which added 9.3% 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 (218 here) are left out; 1939–44 is not a period in the data.

Harry Swift

William Bury Westall

S. A. Birtwell

George Haworth

Henry Parkinson

John Priestley Briggs

Wilfred Oldham

James Hartley Ashworth

John Haworth

Stephen Heys

John Edmondson

Derek Oldham

Pauline Aitken

Tom Duxbury

1800182518501875190019251950

GH

George Haworth1864–1943 · British association football player (1864-1943)

JA

James Hartley Ashworth1874–1936 · British zoologist (1874-1936)

WW

William Bury Westall1834–1903 · English novelist (1834–1903)

Derek Oldham1887–1968 · English singer and actor (1887-1968)

HS

Harry Swift1801–2000 · English footballer

SH

Stephen Heys1879– · English footballer (1879-?)

JE

John Edmondson1882– · English footballer

PA

Pauline Aitken1893–1958 · English sculptor, born 1893

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

More of Accrington’s homes are old than in most places: 52% were built before 1919, against 15% in the typical UK town. All told, the list holds 36 listed buildings, including Accrington Town Hall. Its older streets lie in 2 conservation areas, the first designated in 1976.

George Haworth (1864), James Hartley Ashworth (1874) and William Bury Westall (1834) are among the 14 people born here before 1900. The big year was 1984, when 32 of the 36 went on the list. Otherwise the figures are ordinary: it has no Grade I building, where the middle town its size has 1; and per resident it sits near the middle of UK towns.