156 listed buildings, 2 of them Grade I

The GuildhallGrade II* listedMain building at Chard SchoolGrade II* listedThe Happy Return Public HouseGrade II listedFormer Joint Railway StationGrade II listedLloyds BankGrade II listed+4See 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. 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 156 entries, 51 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 17 entries were listed in 1950, 1 of the 2 Grade I buildings among them. 122 came in 1976, 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.

Margaret Bondfield

Frederick Dwelly

Gerald Kyrke

18501875190019251950

Margaret Bondfield1873–1953 · British feminist and trade unionist (1873–1953)

FD

Frederick Dwelly1881–1957 · Inaugural Dean of Liverpool

GK

Gerald Kyrke1882–1932 · English rugby union footballer (1882–1932)

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

Measured per resident, Chard has more listed heritage than 84% of UK towns. In all there are 156 listed buildings, 2 of them Grade I, including Church of St Mary the Virgin. Only 51 of the 561 towns nearest its size have more Grade I buildings. Holyrood Street alone has 18 listed buildings.

A conservation area has protected part of it since 1980. Of the whole list, 51% are houses, terraces and villas. Margaret Bondfield (1873), Frederick Dwelly (1881) and Gerald Kyrke (1882) were all born here before 1900. Beyond that, 12% of its homes were built before 1919, close to the 15% in the typical UK town.