A railway station that closed to passengers 60 years ago, a cattle trough, a thatched bus shelter on the A353 and a big cockerel on Sutton High Street are among the more unusual English buildings and structures to be listed or upgraded this year.
The sites were among the 952 new entries on Historic England’s national heritage list. The public body’s chief executive, Duncan Wilson, said listing was an important tool in preserving and celebrating the country’s heritage.
“We encourage people to understand and enjoy the wonderful range of historic places on their own doorsteps and by listing them we are protecting them for future generations,” he said.
The newly listed railway station is Otterington, near Northallerton, on the east coast main line. However, trains would have to be going particularly slowly for passengers to even notice it – most whizz by at more than 100mph.
The station building and its signal box were built by the London and North Eastern Railway company in 1932 to replace the Victorian station that had been cleared to allow the expansion of the line to four tracks.
The station was not required for long, closing to passengers in 1958 and goods trains in 1964. It survived thanks to sympathetic private ownership, and has now been awarded a grade II listing. Historic England noted the building’s 1930s streamlined aesthetic, which was used “to promote a sense of modernity and speed”.
Anyone who has passed through Sutton in south London may be familiar with the big cockerel at the top of the high street. The structure, which resembles a pub sign, dates from about 1907.
The Cock Hotel, which it represented, was demolished and the now grade II-listed cockerel sits with road signs directing drivers to Cheam and Croydon.
A thatched bus shelter in the Dorset village of Osmington, which has received a grade II listing, doubles as a memorial. It was built in the late 1940s by Harry and Ethel Parry-Jones in memory of their son David, a lieutenant in the 1st Battalion of the Rifle Brigade, who died aged 20 in the battle of Normandy.
Historic England said the bus shelter had not been significantly altered since it was built, adding: “It demonstrates that even modest and functional structures can form eloquent and valuable memorials for their local communities.”
The newly listed trough, in Hampstead, north-west London, was built in about 1916 and the structure, which provided water for cattle, horses and dogs, serves as a reminder of the once common presence of farm animals in the capital.
Other places of interest identified by Historic England include a former lifeboat house in Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex; sculptures of Robin Hood and his merry men, which were commissioned in 1949 for the outskirts of Nottingham Castle; the Florence iron mine in west Cumbria, one of the best-surviving sites of its type; and two hangars in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire, used by Rolls-Royce to test aircraft in the 30s and 40s.
The new listings and upgrades include 638 war memorials, 19 scheduled monuments, eight parks and gardens and a battlefield.
