A new English Heritage publication showcases the extraordinary variety of historic sites and buildings in London which were added to The National Heritage List for England in a single year.
New additions to The National Heritage List for England in London
The London List Yearbook describes, and illustrates, newly-discovered places that represent the frontiers of our appreciation of what is special about London's history and architecture. Eighty unique historic sites feature in The London List including a trio of huts at a Battle of Britain frontline fighter station, a music room inspired by the Alhambra Palace at a south-west London home and Dr Barnardo's famous children's 'village' in Barkingside. Almost all of the thirty-two London boroughs have at least one newly-designated historic landmark.
What's in the Yearbook?
Not all of the places featured in the Yearbook are buildings. More unusual structures include the paved stone surface of Charterhouse Square, a series of Napoleonic-era earthworks at Woolwich, an ornate lamp post in Brixton and the zebra crossing outside Abbey Road Studios in St John's Wood. The oldest site is Bunhill Fields Burial Grounds, which opened in the fraught political and religious climate of the 1660s; the most recently built is the striking social housing estate at Branch Hill in Hampstead, which received its first new residents in 1978.
What's next?
A few of the new designations have featured in the local or national press, others have sparked political or public attention; the vast majority, however, are relatively unknown sites and buildings, brought to English Heritage's attention by members of the public, local councils and building preservation charities. Nothing illustrates the appetite for protecting our heritage more than the constant stream of applications for designation English Heritage receives every year: some 2000 nationally.
The London List highlights those applications for designation for sites in London which were successful. In future years, English Heritage hopes to publish a national compendium.
