Church: 48% of homes built before 1919

Church of St JamesGrade II* listedRailway ViaductGrade II listedElmfield HallGrade 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.

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.

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.

40% of homes are Victorian or older, against 16% across England and Wales. The busiest period since was 1973–82, 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 (10 here) are left out; 1939–44 is not a period in the data.

Nat Whittaker

Johnny Holt

Jimmy Whitehead

Arthur Chadwick

Walter Marsden

18501875190019251950

AC

Arthur Chadwick1875–1936 · English footballer and manager (1875–1936)

JW

Jimmy Whitehead1870–1929 · English footballer (1870-1929)

JH

Johnny Holt1865–1937 · English footballer (1865-1937)

Walter Marsden1882–1969 · British artist

NW

Nat Whittaker1863–1910 · English footballer, referee, secretary, and manager

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

Old houses are part of Church’s character: 48% of its homes were built before 1919, against 15% in the typical UK town. All told, the list holds 7 listed buildings, including St James' Church, Church Kirk. A conservation area has protected part of it since 2001. Arthur Chadwick (1875), Jimmy Whitehead (1870) and Johnny Holt (1865) are among the 5 people born here before 1900. Beyond that, like most towns its size, it has no Grade I building; per resident it sits near the middle of UK towns; and the list grew between 1976 and 1984.