148 listed buildings, 1 of them Grade I

The Feathers Public HouseGrade II listedWater MillGrade II listedTown HallGrade II listedBridge HouseGrade II listedAylsham War MemorialGrade II listed+4See 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.

1900

1900

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 148 entries, 89 are named by a street address; the rest are named buildings such as churches, halls and bridges.

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 12 entries were listed in 1952. 127 came in 1984, in the national resurvey of the 1970s and 80s. Only 1 has 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.

Joseph Clover

Frederick Strange

Joseph Thomas Clover

D. E. Marsh

Sidney Orton

Denis Black

175017751800182518501875190019251950

Joseph Thomas Clover1825–1882 · English doctor and pioneer of anaesthesia

JC

Joseph Clover1779–1853 · British painter (1779–1853)

DB

Denis Black1897–1973 · British sprinter

Frederick Strange1818–1854 · Strange, Frederick (1810x18–1854), natural history collector

DM

D. E. Marsh1862–1933 · British engineer (1862-1933)

SO

Sidney Orton1890–1978 · English greyhound trainer

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

Measured per resident, Aylsham has more listed heritage than 89% of UK towns. In all there are 148 listed buildings, 1 of them Grade I, including Old Bank House. Only 84 of the 801 towns nearest its size have more Grade I buildings. Red Lion Street alone has 28 listed buildings.

Its older streets lie in 2 conservation areas, the first designated in 1972. Of the whole list, 81% are houses, terraces and villas. Of the 6 people born here before 1900, the best known include Joseph Thomas Clover (1825), Joseph Clover (1779) and Denis Black (1897). The rest is about typical: 17% of its homes were built before 1919, close to the 15% in the typical UK town.