230 listed buildings, 4 of them Grade I

GuildhallGrade I listedDeanery TowerGrade I listedFormer Hadleigh Railway StationGrade II listedKing's Arms InnGrade II listedThe War MemorialGrade II listed+19See 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. 1890

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).

High Street70 listed · 1 Grade I · 7 II*

Angel Street24 listed · 1 II*

Benton Street21 listed · 2 II*

George Street18 listed · 3 II*

Bridge Street9 listed · 3 II*

Church Street5 listed

Duke Street5 listed

Of the 230 entries, 157 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 81 entries were listed in 1950, 4 of the 4 Grade I buildings among them. 143 came in 1972, 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.

John Overall

Joseph Beaumont

Thomas Woolner

Charles Bayliss

155016001650170017501800185019001950

Thomas Woolner1825–1892 · English poet and sculptor (1825–1892)

JO

John Overall1560–1619 · Bishop of Norwich

Joseph Beaumont1616–1699 · British academic and poet

Charles Bayliss1850–1897 · Australian photographer (1850–1897)

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

For its size, Hadleigh has more listed heritage than 94% of UK towns. In all there are 230 listed buildings, 4 of them Grade I. St Mary sits at the heart of it all, with 4 of the town’s Grade I buildings within 400 m. Only 26 of the 721 towns nearest its size have more Grade I buildings.

On High Street alone there are 70 listed buildings. A conservation area has protected part of it since 1969. Of the whole list, 81% are houses, terraces and villas. Beyond that, 15% of its homes were built before 1919, close to the 15% in the typical UK town.