Heritage Highlights: Did You Know?
Heritage Highlights showcases some of the more unusual, intriguing, and groundbreaking historic places protected through this country's designation system. We hope these entries from the National Heritage List for England will excite and inspire people about our past. Even the most seemingly ordinary places often have an extraordinary story to tell.
By browsing the entries below, you might discover the history behind a building in your local area, chance upon a topic you are studying at school, or even become your own historic detective!
Find a highlight near you
Heritage Highlights
- Where Does the Term 'Hobson's Choice' Come From?
- Why Can We Still See Marks of Sites Lost Thousands of Years Ago?
- What Was the Arts and Crafts Movement?
- How Does Wood Survive Underground For Thousands of Years?
- How Did Candles Light Up Post-War Cambridge?
- Did Oliver Cromwell Really Ban Christmas?
- Where Does the English Habit of Afternoon Tea Come From?
- Why Would You Shake an Atomic Bomb?
- What was Proclaimed the 'Eighth Wonder of the World' on Completion in 1843, but 'An Entire Failure' Just a Decade Later?
- Was the Whitehall Cenotaph Made of Wood?
- What's Beautiful About Brutalism?
- Which Teams Played in the First Cricket Match at Lord's?
- Why Has Historic England Listed a Skatepark?
- Which Building Was Rumoured to Have Survived the Blitz Because Hitler Coveted It for the Nazis' HQ?
- Where Was the Only Nuclear Reactor to Be Constructed Inside a Listed Building?
- How Did Sweets & Fire Lead to the Invention of the Christmas Cracker?
- How Did the Birth of Television Make Sparks Fly at Alexandra Palace?
- How Did Thimbles Help Thousands of Servicemen in the First World War?
- Did Thomas Cromwell Ever Live in Wolf Hall?
- Which Building Feels Like an Elephant?
- Where Was the World's First Programmable Computer Created?
- How Did Our Medieval Ancestors Cope with Flooding?
- Why Would a Cemetery Need a Railway Line?
- Can Pigs Really Fly?
- Where is the Oldest Motor-Racing Circuit in the World?
- Where Were Prisoners Locked Up Before Police Stations Existed?
- What Can Art Tell Us About the Lives of Evacuated Children in the Second World War?
- What Was the 'Whig' Party and Where Can You Find Them Today?
- Which Medieval Leper Hospital is Still a Working Almshouse Today?
- What Interesting Flavours Did the Romans Introduce to Britain?
- Under Which 'Thatched Roof of Rusted Gold' Were the Lyrics to the Much-Loved Hymn 'Jerusalem' Written?
- Which Grade I Listed Bridge is Featured in J M W Turner's Painting 'Rain, Steam and Speed'?
- Jewish Culture in the National Heritage List for England
- Did Conkers Help to Win the First World War?
- Can You Purchase Paradise?
- How Did the Sinking of a Ship in 1707 Lead to the Invention of the Marine Chronometer?
- What Proved 'Good Luck' For Channel 4's Time Team at a Scheduled Monument in Gloucestershire?
- Did Thomas Cromwell Ever Live in Wolf Hall?
- If Germany Had Invaded England in the Second World War, Who Would Have Fought Back?
- Whose Hut is Considered to be the Birthplace of Public Health?
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