Listed buildings

You will need to get listed building consent from the council before carrying out any building works, however minor, which will affect the character or appearance of a listed building. It is a criminal offence to carry out works to a listed building without having first obtained listed building consent.

How to find out if your property is listed

To find out whether your property is listed you can:

  • search the National Heritage List for England on the Historic England website
  • use our interactive map to view the location of a listed building and its list description. Search by location, or zoom in and out using the plus/minus button or the scroll wheel on your mouse if it has one. Selecting each building will return information including listing grade and a detailed description

What is a listed building?

Listing a building recognises its special architectural and historical value and protects it by bringing it under planning controls. Listed buildings can be all sorts of structures including telephone boxes, letter boxes, walls and gates as well as what we all recognise as buildings.

There are three grades of listed building: Grade I, Grade II* and Grade II.

Borough wide, Cheltenham has over 2602 listed buildings of which five are Grade I, 387 are Grade II* and 2210 are Grade II and the statutory controls apply equally to all listed buildings, irrespective of grade.

A 'point in time' photographic library of England 's listed buildings, recorded at the turn of the 21st century, is available to view at Historic England Images of England.

Why are buildings listed?

The main criteria used when deciding which buildings to include in the statutory lists are:

  • Architectural interest: all buildings which are of importance to the nation for the interest of their architectural design, decoration and craftsmanship. Also includes important examples of particular building types and techniques and significant plan forms
  • Historic interest: buildings which illustrate important aspects of the nation's social, economic, cultural or military history
  • Close historical association: with nationally important people or events
  • Group value: where buildings form an important architectural or historic unity or a fine example of planning (such as squares, terraces or model villages)

Not all these criteria will be relevant to every case, but a particular building may qualify for listing under more than one of them.

What is listed?

When a building is listed the whole of the site is listed:

  • internally and externally
  • interior fixtures and fittings
  • garden structures and ornaments if they were part of the original scheme
  • structures attached to the listed building and separate buildings/structures within its boundaries, which were there before 1 July 1948

Applying to get a building listed

Historic England carry out a programme of listing properties, but anyone can nominate a building to be listed. In both cases Historic England make a recommendation to the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the DCMS make the final decision as to whether a site should be listed or not.

Information on how to get historic buildings or sites protected through listing, including application forms and guidance notes for applicants, can be found on the Historic England website.

Energy efficiency, renewables and our built cultural heritage

We have collected helpful guidance on improving energy efficiency in historic buildings.