121 listed buildings, 5 of them Grade I

Oakham CastleGrade I listedChurch of All SaintsGrade I listedMarket CrossGrade I listedOakham Level Crossing Signal BoxGrade II listedSwooning BridgeGrade II listed+10See 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. 1914

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 121 entries, 75 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 23 entries were listed in 1950, 4 of the 5 Grade I buildings among them. 85 came in 1971, in the national resurvey of the 1970s and 80s. Only 2 have been added in the last 15 years.

2 scheduled monuments

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

Butter Cross and stocks

MedievalOakham motte and bailey castle and medieval gardens

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.

Titus Oates

John Furley

Florence I. Nicholson

Aubrey Ellwood

16001650170017501800185019001950

Titus Oates1649–1705 · English perjurer (1649-1705)

Florence I. Nicholson1866–1931 · English vegetarianism activist (1866–1931)

AE

Aubrey Ellwood1897–1992 · Royal Air Force air marshal (1897-1992)

JF

John Furley1847–1909 · British cricketer (1847-1909)

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

Per resident, Oakham has more listed heritage than 83% of UK towns. All told, the list holds 121 listed buildings, 5 of them Grade I, including Oakham Castle. Gateway to Oakham Castle sits at the heart of it all, with 5 of the town’s Grade I buildings within 400 m. Only 22 of the 610 towns nearest its size have more Grade I buildings.

High Street alone has 16 listed buildings. A conservation area has protected part of it since 1971. Of the whole list, 77% are houses, terraces and villas. Beyond that, it also has 2 scheduled monuments; and 9.7% of its homes were built before 1919, close to the 15% in the typical UK town.