58 listed buildings, 3 of them Grade I

Church of St Peter and St PaulGrade I listedWicksteed ParkGrade II park or gardenRoyal Hotel and ranges to rearGrade II listedPublic LibraryGrade II listedFormer London, City & Midland BankGrade II listed+5See 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.

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).

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 13 entries were listed in 1950, 3 of the 3 Grade I buildings among them. 27 came in 1976, in the national resurvey of the 1970s and 80s. Only 6 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.

MedievalBarton Seagrave moats, fishponds and shrunken medieval village remains

1 registered park or garden

Wicksteed ParkGrade 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.

John Gill

William Knibb

Henry Nettleship

Mary Aldis

John Trivett Nettleship

Alfred East

Thomas Northcote Toller

Basil Church

John Alfred Gotch

Thomas Cooper Gotch

Walter Marsham

A. Wallis Myers

Herbert Winterhalder

Bill Clarke

Tim Coleman

Bob Browning

David Hawthorne

Ernest Wright

Bert Bellamy

Stephen Wright

1650170017501800185019001950

Alfred East1844–1913 · British artist (1844-1913)

Thomas Cooper Gotch1854–1931 · English Pre-Raphaelite painter and book illustrator (1854-1931)

John Gill1697–1771 · English Baptist pastor, biblical scholar and theologian (1697-1771)

A. Wallis Myers1878–1939 · British sports journalist (1878–1939)

TC

Tim Coleman1881–1940 · English footballer (1881-1940)

William Knibb1803–1845 · British missionary (1803–1845)

Henry Nettleship1839–1893 · 19th century British schoolteacher and classical scholar (1839–1893)

JG

John Alfred Gotch1852–1942 · British architect and historian

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

Kettering has 58 listed buildings, 3 of them Grade I, including Church of St Peter and St Paul. Only 37 of the 174 towns nearest its size have more Grade I buildings. Its older streets lie in 2 conservation areas, the first designated in 1988. Of the 26 people born here before 1900, the best known include Alfred East (1844), Thomas Cooper Gotch (1854) and John Gill (1697). Otherwise the figures are ordinary: per resident it sits near the middle of UK towns; it also has a scheduled monument; and 20% of its homes were built before 1919, close to the 15% in the typical UK town.