Cadbury model boating club in Birmingham among 19 wonderful buildings newly protected by Historic England - see the full list here

Bournville Radio Sailing and Model Boat Club boathouse and boating pond in Birmingham was built in 1933.

It highlights the Cadbury family’s concern for employee welfare and their support for the long-term unemployed who were hired to build the clubhouse. 

It has been listed at Grade II in new designations given out by Historic England.

It has also added King Edward VI Handsworth School for Girls, Birmingham, which was built in 1911, as Grade II* in recognition of its neoclassical design and interior which features detailed plasterwork, ornamental leadwork and decorated corridors.

Other buildings protected in 2025 include the post-war Renold Building at the University of Manchester, gothic-style private Broxwood Court garden chapel in Pembridge, Herefordshire, and a former Victorian ironmongers specialising in Norwegian ice skates. 

They are joined by more unusual sites including Victorian guide posts to help early motorists in Cheshire , and coal duty boundary posts in Essex.

Also listed is rare dockside equipment in Greenwich linked to the first successful transatlantic phone cable which allowed simultaneous phone calls between Britain and North America from the 1950s, and a very rare shipwreck known as the pin wreck off Dorset’s coast.

Arts and Crafts gardens including one in the Tees Valley including terracotta gnomes, pixies and elves and a secret garden, and another in Essex with garden rooms, a sunken rockery and bowling green, have also been protected.

Bude Storm Tower, or “the Pepperpot”, in Cornwall, is among the heritage getting its list entry updated this year, after being moved for a second time in its history due to coastal erosion, while Liverpool’s Metropolitan Cathedral has been upgraded from Grade II* to Grade I status.

A rare working smock mill in Kent, Draper’s Windmill, has been upgraded from Grade II to the higher Grade II* listing.

Heritage minister Baroness Twycross said: “Britain’s heritage is as varied as it is brilliant, with each of these buildings playing a part in shaping our national story over the centuries.

“This year alone we have protected 199 heritage sites, from neolithic cairns in the Yorkshire Dales to the fabulous Catholic cathedrals in the heart of Liverpool.

“I’m proud that we’re safeguarding our rich history so future generations can continue to enjoy it.”

In total, 199 sites were added to the National Heritage List for England in 2025, including 173 listings of buildings, 21 scheduled monuments and five parks and gardens, while 129 amendments were made to existing listings.

Here are the 19 highlighted by Historic England: 

- The Bournville Radio Sailing and Model Boat Club boathouse and boating pond in Birmingham, which were built in 1933 and highlight the Cadbury family’s concern for employee welfare and their support for the long-term unemployed who were hired to build the clubhouse, has been listed at Grade II.

– King Edward VI Handsworth School for Girls, Birmingham, built in 1911, has been listed at Grade II* in recognition of its neoclassical design and interior which features detailed plasterwork, ornamental leadwork and decorated corridors.

– Broxwood Court garden chapel, Pembridge, Herefordshire, is a modest brick-built chapel, built in the Gothic style with a decoratively tiled roof and stained-glass windows, and a rare surviving example of a 19th century private Catholic place of worship. It has been listed at Grade II.

– Submarine telephone cable hauler and gantry at Enderby’s Wharf, Greenwich, London, which were once part of cable works that connected England to the rest of the world, including loading the first transatlantic telephone cable TAT-1 which started operation in 1956.

– Concrete anti-tank obstacles at Thorneycroft Wood, Guildford, Surrey, known as dragon’s teeth, which were built in 1941-42 and are among the best-preserved examples of efforts installed to stop a German invasion during the war.

– Draper’s Windmill, in Margate, Kent, built in around 1843 to grind grain into flour, has had its significance as a 19th century smock mill with rare surviving internal machinery recognised with an upgrading to Grade II* listing.

– Cobham Mews Studios, a 1980s workshop designed by David Chipperfield Architects in a former scrapyard plot behind residential terraces in Camden, London, has been listed as a building of special interest at Grade II.

– The wreck of an admiralty mooring lighter, known as the Pin Wreck, off St Albans Head, Dorset, has been listed as a scheduled monument as the only surviving example of its type of vessel, a 19th century steam mooring lighter with Victorian equipment and early diving gear, which was lost in 1903.

– The 19th century Bude Storm Tower, Cornwall, known as the Pepperpot due to its shape, has had its listing updated to reflect that it has been moved for the second time in its history, with a conservation project to move it 120 metres north east in the face of cliff erosion caused by climate change.

– Sharlands House, Braunton, Devon, which was completed in 1912, has been listed at Grade II for its Arts and Crafts architecture with panelling, geometric designs and beaten copperwork.

– Dudderhouse Hill neolithic long cairn, near Ingleborough in the Yorkshire Dales, a burial mound dating back to around 3,400BC which is partly turf-covered and measures 23 metres long and 12 metres wide, has been listed as a schedule monument.

– The garden at Tudor Croft, Guisborough, Redcar and Cleveland, has been protected as a rare survival of an inter-war suburban garden in a relaxed Arts and Crafts style, with a “gnome garden” populated with terracotta elves, gnomes, pixies, birds and animals, a secret garden, and a roofed fernery.

– A Victorian cast-iron marker on Epping Road, Essex, is one of the few remaining posts from a ring of 280 that once encircled London to mark the boundary where duty was payable on coal imported into the capital in a system that originated to fund development after the 1666 Great Fire.

– Adams Heritage Centre in Littleport, Cambridgeshire, which has been listed at Grade II as a rare survival of Victorian commercial architecture, was built in 1893 and was originally an ironmongers which gained a national reputation for fitting and maintaining Norwegian ice skates.

– The garden of Great Ruffins in Wickham Bishop, Essex, has been listed as a rare example of an Arts and Crafts suburban landscape, with surviving features including clipped yew hedges, a cedar avenue, garden rooms, a sunken rockery and a bowling green.

– St Peter’s Church, Littlebury Green, Essex, has been listed at Grade II as a rare “tin tabernacle” prefabricated church, complete with a surviving wooden cupola with bell, original pews, altar fittings and decorative transfers in the windows.

– The striking Renold Building, at the University of Manchester’s Institute of Science and Technology campus, which was the first purpose built lecture theatre block in an English higher education institution when it opened in early 1960, has been listed at Grade II.

– The Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King with its radical design around a central altar and post-war liturgical art, has been upgraded from Grade II* to Grade I, putting the 1960s cathedral among the most important heritage buildings in England.

– Three Ashley Parish guideposts, Cheshire, which date from the late 19th to early 20th centuries and have been listed at Grade II, offer a glimpse of early road transport in England with fingerpost style signs at a triangle of minor roads put up in response to motor travel legislation.