56 listed buildings, 3 of them Grade II*

Canons Garth and Doorway and WallsGrade II* listedChurch of All SaintsGrade II* listedMemorial to Second Baron FevershamGrade 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.

c. 1892

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.

Of the 56 entries, 32 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 9 entries were listed in 1955. 43 came in 1985, in the national resurvey of the 1970s and 80s. Only 0 have been added in the last 15 years.

1 scheduled monument

Nationally important archaeological sites and monuments, protected by law; work on them needs consent from the Secretary of State, advised by Historic England.

1 registered park or garden

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.

Measured per resident, Helmsley has more listed heritage than 88% of UK towns. All told, the list holds 56 listed buildings. High Street alone has 8 listed buildings. A conservation area has protected part of it since 1973.

Most entries on the list, 77%, are houses, terraces and villas. The big year was 1985, when 43 of the 56 went on the list. The rest is about typical: like most towns its size, it has no Grade I building; John Simpson (1807) was born here before 1900; and it also has a scheduled monument.