Historic England

Historic England is an executive non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It advises the Government on heritage policy, manages the National Heritage List for England — the official register of all nationally protected historic buildings and sites — and provides grants and expert guidance to those working with the historic environment.

The organisation maintains the statutory registers of Listed Buildings, Scheduled Monuments, Registered Historic Parks and Gardens, Registered Battlefields, and Protected Wreck Sites in England. It also manages the National Record of the Historic Environment, a comprehensive database of over 400,000 records charting England's architectural and archaeological past.

Historic England works directly with local authorities, property owners, developers, and conservation professionals to ensure that change affecting historic places is managed sensitively and in a way that sustains the significance of the historic environment for future generations.

History

Historic England was created on 1 April 2015, when English Heritage — previously the single body responsible for both the National Collection of historic properties and its statutory advisory role — split into two separate organisations. The statutory and advisory functions became Historic England; the charity managing the national collection of over 400 historic properties became the new English Heritage charity.

English Heritage itself had been established in 1984 under the National Heritage Act as the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England. Prior to that, protection of the built heritage had been administered directly by central government, a lineage stretching back to the Ancient Monuments Protection Act of 1882.