95 listed buildings, 2 of them Grade I

Priory RuinsGrade I listedDrinking Fountain, Market Place, DudleyGrade II* listedShakespeare Public HouseGrade II listedTowpath Bridge, Approximately 300 Metres North West of Highbridge RoadGrade II listedPublic LibraryGrade II listed+11See 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. 1906

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).

Of the 95 entries, 37 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 21 entries were listed in 1949, 2 of the 2 Grade I buildings among them. 42 came in 1976, in the national resurvey of the 1970s and 80s. Only 3 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.

Dudley Castle

Lime working remains in Dudley

St James's Priory

1 registered park or garden

Priory Park, DudleyGrade II

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 Sutton, 3rd Baron Dudley

Abraham Darby I

Thomas Phillips

John Berryman

Frederick Herbert Torrington

Frank Evers Beddard

Genie Sheppard

John Haden Badley

Arthur Kelsey

Isaiah Turner

Fred Rhodes

James Gorman

Bert Baverstock

Eli Bradley

William Ball

James Whale

Joe Smith

Sammy Stevens

Tom Evans

Joe Astley

1500165018001950

James Whale1889–1957 · British-born American film director

Thomas Phillips1770–1845 · British painter (1770–1845)

AI

Abraham Darby I1678–1717 · Ironmaster: first successful use of coke in smelting

JS

Joe Smith1889–1971 · English footballer and manager (1889–1971)

JA

Joe Astley1899–1967 · English footballer (1899-1967)

FB

Frank Evers Beddard1858–1925 · English zoologist (1858-1925)

WB

William Ball1886–1942 · Footballer (1886-1942)

GS

Genie Sheppard1864–1953 · British militant suffragette

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

Dudley has 95 listed buildings, 2 of them Grade I, including Dudley Castle. Wolverhampton Street alone has 13 listed buildings. Its older streets lie in 5 conservation areas, the first designated in 1970.

Of the whole list, 59% are houses, terraces and villas. Of the 37 people born here before 1900, the best known include James Whale (1889), Thomas Phillips (1770) and Abraham Darby I (1678). Otherwise the figures are ordinary: it has 2 Grade I buildings, about typical for a town its size (the middle one has 1); per resident it sits near the middle of UK towns; and it also has 3 scheduled monuments.