185 listed buildings, 4 of them Grade I

Church of St Mary (Including Ruins of Benedictine Convent)Grade I listedButter CrossGrade I listedDreyer AlmshousesGrade II listedThe SwanGrade II listedBridge HouseGrade 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.

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 185 entries, 120 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 37 entries were listed in 1949, 4 of the 4 Grade I buildings among them. 142 came in 1972, in the national resurvey of the 1970s and 80s. Only 2 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.

Bungay Castle

Butter Cross

Castle Hills

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.

21% of homes are Victorian or older, against 16% across England and Wales. The busiest period since was 1965–72, which added 12% 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 (10 here) are left out; 1939–44 is not a period in the data.

Elizabeth Bonhôte

William Miller

Ambrose Cuddon

Susanna Moodie

John Jackson

170017501800185019001950

Susanna Moodie1803–1885 · Canadian writer (1803–1885)

JJ

John Jackson1833–1901 · English cricketer (1833-1901)

EB

Elizabeth Bonhôte1744–1818 · English novelist, essayist and poet, 1744–1818

William Miller1769–1844 · English publisher, born 1769 (1769–1844)

AC

Ambrose Cuddon1790–1879 · English anarchist (1790–1879)

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

For its size, Bungay has more listed heritage than 95% of UK towns. In all there are 185 listed buildings, 4 of them Grade I. Of its homes, 24% were built before 1919, against 15% in the typical UK town. Bungay Castle sits at the heart of it all, with 4 of the town’s Grade I buildings within 400 m.

Only 13 of the 942 towns nearest its size have more Grade I buildings. Earsham Street alone has 27 listed buildings. Its older streets lie in 2 conservation areas, the first designated in 1970. Otherwise the figures are ordinary: it also has 3 scheduled monuments.