295 listed buildings, 3 of them Grade I

Church of St WalburgeGrade I listedHarris Public Library, Museum and Art GalleryGrade I listedPreston War MemorialGrade I listedThe Bears Paw Public HouseGrade II listedCanal Aqueduct, Numbered 13, Approximately 300 Metres South of Canal Bridge No 14Grade II listed+19See 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.

c. 1857

Public domain, from Wikimedia Commons, copied to our own server. Each credit opens the image’s page with its full description and history.

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).

Of the 295 entries, 150 are named by a street address; the rest are named buildings such as churches, halls and bridges.

Search the rest on Historic England’s list →

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 8 entries were listed in 1950, 2 of the 3 Grade I buildings among them. 131 came in 1979, in the national resurvey of the 1970s and 80s. Only 3 have been added in the last 15 years.

7 registered parks and gardens

Avenham ParkGrade II*

Avenham WalkGrade II

Haslam ParkGrade II

Miller ParkGrade II*

Moor ParkGrade II*

Preston CemeteryGrade II

The WillowsGrade II

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.

25% of homes are Victorian or older, against 16% across England and Wales. The busiest period since was the 1930s, 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 (389 here) are left out; 1939–44 is not a period in the data.

John Wall

Arthur Devis

Richard Arkwright

Helen Lemmens-Sherrington

John Gorst

Joseph P. Newsham

Francis Thompson

Richard Stuart Lake

Bob Howarth

Nat Walton

Robert Holmes

Angela Brazil

John Myres

Edith Rigby

Frank Becton

Robert W. Service

Teresa Billington-Greig

John Bagot Glubb

Tom Armstrong

Edmund Hirst

16001650170017501800185019001950

Richard Arkwright1732–1792 · Textile entrepreneur; developer of the spinning frame (known as the w…

John Bagot Glubb1897–1986 · British military officer, scholar and author (1897–1986)

Francis Thompson1859–1907 · British poet (1859-1907)

Robert W. Service1874–1958 · Canadian poet and writer (1874-1958)

TB

Teresa Billington-Greig1877–1964 · British suffragette (1877–1964)

Angela Brazil1868–1947 · English children's writer (1868-1947)

TA

Tom Armstrong1898–1967 · British football player (1898-1967)

Edith Rigby1872–1950 · English suffragette

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

Old houses are part of Preston’s character: 31% of its homes were built before 1919, against 15% in the typical UK town. All told, the list holds 295 listed buildings, 3 of them Grade I, including Church of St. Walburge. On Frenchwood Street alone there are 15 listed buildings. Its older streets lie in 9 conservation areas, the first designated in 1975.

Of the whole list, 67% are houses, terraces and villas. Richard Arkwright (1732), John Bagot Glubb (1897) and Francis Thompson (1859) are among the 82 people born here before 1900. Otherwise the figures are ordinary: it has 3 Grade I buildings, about typical for a town its size (the middle one has 2); and per resident it sits near the middle of UK towns.