15 listed buildings, 1 of them Grade I

Bishopthorpe Palace and ChapelGrade I listedThe Ebor InnGrade II listedChurch of St AndrewGrade II listedBishopthorpe GarthGrade II listedWar MemorialGrade 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.

c. 1912

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.

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, 1 of the 1 Grade I buildings among them. 10 came in 1985, in the national resurvey of the 1970s and 80s. Only 0 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.

7.6% of homes are Victorian or older, against 16% across England and Wales. The busiest period since was 1965–72, which added 33% 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 (0 here) are left out; 1939–44 is not a period in the data.

The official list counts 15 listed buildings in Bishopthorpe, 1 of them Grade I, including Bishopthorpe Palace. Only 94 of the 1,166 towns nearest its size have more Grade I buildings. A conservation area has protected part of it since 1989.

Its homes are mostly newer: 8.5% were built before 1919, against 15% in the typical UK town. The big year was 1985, when 10 of the 15 went on the list. Beyond that, per resident it sits near the middle of UK towns; and George Sandys (1578) and Joseph Halfpenny (1748) were born here before 1900.