Old homes in Colne: 51% built before 1919

Church of St BartholomewGrade I listedFold FarmhouseGrade II listedTown HallGrade II listedSpergarth Cottage and Winewall HouseGrade II listedRed LionGrade II listed+2See 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 1 entry was listed in 1952. 17 came in 1988, in the national resurvey of the 1970s and 80s. Only 3 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.

45% of homes are Victorian or older, against 16% across England and Wales. The busiest period since was the 1930s, which added 8.6% 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 (79 here) are left out; 1939–44 is not a period in the data.

Mary Taft

William Hampden Dutton

William Pickles Hartley

Tom Shaw

Wallace Hartley

175017751800182518501875190019251950

Wallace Hartley1878–1912 · Band leader on the RMS Titanic (1878–1912)

Tom Shaw1872–1938 · British trade unionist and politician (1872-1938)

WD

William Hampden Dutton1807–1849 · (1805-1849) pastoralist

MT

Mary Taft1772–1851 · English Wesleyan Methodist preacher

William Pickles Hartley1846–1922 · British businessman (1846-1922)

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

Old houses are part of Colne’s character: 51% of its homes were built before 1919, against 15% in the typical UK town. All told, the list holds 41 listed buildings, 1 of them Grade I, including St Bartholomew's Church. Only 105 of the 496 towns nearest its size have more Grade I buildings. Its older streets lie in 5 conservation areas, the first designated in 1972.

Of the whole list, 59% are houses, terraces and villas. Wallace Hartley (1878), Tom Shaw (1872) and William Hampden Dutton (1807) are among the 5 people born here before 1900. Beyond that, per resident it sits near the middle of UK towns.