106 listed buildings, 1 of them Grade I

Ellesmere Castle: a motte and bailey castle 200m south west of St Mary's ChurchScheduled monumentBlack Lion HotelGrade II listedCanal Warehouse of the Shropshire Union Canal (Llangollen Branch)Grade II listedFulwood House (Ellesmere Branch Library)Grade II listedTown HallGrade 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.

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 106 entries, 72 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 28 entries were listed in 1951, 1 of the 1 Grade I buildings among them. 76 came in 1982, 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.

Ellesmere Castle: a motte and bailey castle 200m south west of St Mary's Church

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.

Robert Topham

Arthur Topham

Louisa Wilkins

Eglantyne Jebbs

18501875190019251950

Eglantyne Jebbs1876–1928 · British social reformer, founder of 'Save the Children' (1876-1928)

RT

Robert Topham1867–1931 · English footballer (1867-1931)

AT

Arthur Topham1869–1931 · English footballer (1869-1931)

LW

Louisa Wilkins1873–1929 · English agricultural administrator

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

Per resident, Ellesmere has more listed heritage than 89% of UK towns. All told, the list holds 106 listed buildings, 1 of them Grade I, including St Mary's Church. Only 87 of the 1,010 towns nearest its size have more Grade I buildings. On St Johns Hill alone there are 10 listed buildings.

A conservation area protects part of it. Most entries on the list, 84%, are houses, terraces and villas. Eglantyne Jebbs (1876), Robert Topham (1867) and Arthur Topham (1869) are among the 4 people born here before 1900. Beyond that, it also has a scheduled monument; and 18% of its homes were built before 1919, close to the 15% in the typical UK town.