259 listed buildings, 6 of them Grade I

Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St ChadGrade I listedDarwin HouseGrade I listedThe Corn ExchangeGrade II listedDuke of York Public HouseGrade II listedRailway BridgeGrade II listed+32See 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.

1835

c. 1890

c. 1905

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).

Bore Street15 listed · 1 II*

Market Street14 listed

Tamworth Street14 listed

The Close12 listed · 4 II*

Dam Street11 listed

Beacon Street10 listed

Bird Street9 listed

St John Street9 listed · 1 II*

Lombard Street5 listed

Greenhill4 listed

Sandford Street4 listed

Of the 259 entries, 122 are named by a street address; the rest are named buildings such as churches, halls and bridges.

Search the rest on Historic England’s list →

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 1 entry was listed in 1951. 92 came in 1952. Only 0 have been added in the last 15 years.

3 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.

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.

4.1% of homes are Victorian or older, against 16% across England and Wales. The busiest period since was 1955–64, which added 18% of today’s homes.

Valuation Office Agency, council tax stock of properties by build period, 31 March 2025, for the neighbourhoods (LSOAs) that make up the town, split by where their residents live. Homes with no recorded build period (90 here) are left out; 1939–44 is not a period in the data.

Edmund Gennings

Elias Ashmole

John Wyatt

Thomas Newton

Samuel Johnson

George Butt

Richard Vyse

Robert Darwin

Henry Salt

Penelope Boothby

Philip John Bainbrigge

James Fowler

Richard Garnett

Walter Noel Hartley

Margaret Lonsdale

Tom McKnight

Charlie Ditchfield

Harold St George Gray

Roly Harper

Herbert James Hunt

155016001650170017501800185019001950

Samuel Johnson1709–1784 · English writer and lexicographer (1709–1784)

Elias Ashmole1617–1692 · English antiquarian, politician, officer of arms, astrologer and alch…

Robert Darwin1766–1848 · English medical doctor; father of naturalist Charles Darwin

Henry Salt1780–1827 · English artist, traveller, diplomat, and egyptologist (1780-1827)

Richard Garnett1835–1906 · British scholar, librarian, biographer and poet (1835-1906)

Edmund Gennings1567–1591 · English martyr

Thomas Newton1704–1782 · British cleric, biblical scholar and author; (1704-1782)

Penelope Boothby1785–1791 · British art model and subject of poetry

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

Measured per resident, Lichfield has more listed heritage than 83% of UK towns. In all there are 259 listed buildings, 6 of them Grade I. Lichfield Cathedral sits at the heart of it all, with 4 of the town’s Grade I buildings within 400 m. Only 19 of the 332 towns nearest its size have more Grade I buildings.

Bore Street alone has 15 listed buildings. A conservation area has protected part of it since 1970. Of the whole list, 64% are houses, terraces and villas. Otherwise the figures are ordinary: it also has 3 scheduled monuments.