England Listed Building & Conservation Area Check

Check the official heritage constraints on any address in England by UK postcode or latitude/longitude, in bulk. Each location returns one flat JSON row: how many listed buildings (Grade I, II*, II) are within your radius, which one is nearest, and whether the point sits in a conservation area, an article 4 direction area, a scheduled monument, a registered park and garden, a registered battlefield, a protected wreck site or a World Heritage Site.

Screen up to 1,000 properties per run for $5 per 1,000 heritage checks — official Historic England and UK government open data, no API key, no login, no personal data, ready for the Apify API and MCP (AI agents).

• Listed buildings near the point: the total within your radius plus the count by grade (I / II* / II), and the nearest one with its name, grade, listing date, National Heritage List entry number, distance in metres and official Historic England page.
• Conservation areas: whether the point is inside a conservation area, its name, and a link to the council's own conservation area page where the council publishes one. Conservation areas are designated by local councils, so they are not in the National Heritage List — this Actor adds them from the government's Planning Data Platform.
• Article 4 direction areas: whether the point is inside an area where permitted development rights have been withdrawn (so even minor changes may need planning permission).
• Other national designations: scheduled monuments, registered parks and gardens, registered battlefields, protected wreck sites and World Heritage Sites — both "the point is inside one" and "there is one within the radius".
• Bulk heritage screening: up to 1,000 postcodes or coordinates per run, each with your own label, one row per location in input order. Built for property lists, site shortlists and portfolios.
• Honest about gaps: a separate conservationAreaDataNearby flag tells you when a council has not published its conservation area boundaries, instead of silently answering "not in a conservation area". Revoked article 4 directions are excluded.
• Official open data: Historic England's National Heritage List for England (NHLE, updated daily) and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government's Planning Data Platform, both under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Rows for invalid, unknown and non-England inputs are not charged.

	Free official maps (Historic England, council maps)	Paid planning / local authority search	This Actor
Listed buildings with grade, list entry and distance	One address at a time, by hand	Yes	Yes, up to 1,000 locations per run
Conservation area and article 4	A separate council map for each area	Yes	Yes, from the national Planning Data Platform
Scheduled monuments, parks and gardens, battlefields, wrecks, World Heritage Sites	Yes, by hand	Usually	Yes
Output	Web map	PDF report	Flat JSON / CSV / Excel, API and MCP
Price	Free, but manual	About £42–£75+ per property (e.g. Landmark Planning £42, Plansearch Plus £72, local authority search from £74.50)	$0.005 per location
Legal search for a transaction	No	Yes	No — screening only

What can you do with England Listed Building & Conservation Area Check?

1. Conveyancers, surveyors and property lawyers. Flag the listed buildings and conservation areas around a property before you order the full local authority search, and attach the National Heritage List entry links to your file.
2. Architects, builders, solar and retrofit companies. Listed building consent, conservation area consent and article 4 directions change what you can install and how much a job costs. Check a whole sales pipeline of addresses in one run instead of one at a time.
3. Developers, investors and land teams — site screening. Rank candidate sites by heritage risk: how many Grade I / II* assets sit within 250 m, whether the site is inside a World Heritage Site or a scheduled monument.
4. AI agents and chatbots. Answer "Is this address listed or in a conservation area?" with one call and a ready-made one-sentence heritageSummary.

Screening data, not a heritage or local authority search. This Actor returns public map data. It is not a conveyancing search, listed building consent advice, or confirmation that an individual building is or is not listed. See "Data source, attribution and caveats".

How to use it

1. Click Start to try the default input (Bath Abbey Church Yard and Stonehenge).
2. Paste your postcodes or "lat,long" strings (up to 1,000), optionally with a label each.
3. Download the rows as JSON, CSV or Excel, or call the Actor via the API or MCP (see below).

Input

Only locations is required.

Input	Type	Default	What it does
locations	list	["BA1 1LT", "51.1789,-1.8262"]	UK postcodes ("BA1 1LT", any spacing or case) and/or "latitude,longitude" strings. Via the API also objects {"postcode": "BA1 1LT", "label": "Listing 1042"} or {"latitude": 51.1789, "longitude": -1.8262, "label": "Site A"}. Up to 1,000 per run.
radiusMeters	integer	250	How far to look for listed buildings, scheduled monuments, parks and gardens, battlefields, wrecks and World Heritage Sites (10–1,000 m). Conservation areas and article 4 areas are always tested at the point itself.
maxListedBuildings	integer	20	How many nearby listed buildings to name in listedBuildingsNearby, nearest first (1–50). Counts are always complete.

Coverage: England only. Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish postcodes and coordinates return an error row that is not charged (Wales is covered by Cadw, Scotland by Historic Environment Scotland, Northern Ireland by the Department for Communities).

Postcodes are checked at the postcode centroid (a single point from the ONS Postcode Directory). A postcode can cover several buildings, and a conservation area boundary may run through it. For a specific building, pass its latitude/longitude.

Input example

{
  "locations": [
    { "postcode": "BA1 1LT", "label": "Listing 1042" },
    "51.1789,-1.8262",
    "MK9 3QA"
  ],
  "radiusMeters": 250
}

Output

Output example

Real output from the input above (run on 2026-09-23). The first row (shortened listedBuildingsNearby):

{
  "status": "ok",
  "input": "{\"postcode\": \"BA1 1LT\", \"label\": \"Listing 1042\"}",
  "label": "Listing 1042",
  "postcode": "BA1 1LT",
  "latitude": 51.381148,
  "longitude": -2.358279,
  "adminDistrict": "Bath and North East Somerset",
  "searchRadiusMeters": 250,
  "insideDesignatedArea": true,
  "anyHeritageWithinRadius": true,
  "designationsOnSite": "World Heritage Site; Conservation Area",
  "heritageSummary": "The point is inside: World Heritage Site (City of Bath), Conservation Area (Bath); 206 listed building(s) within 250 m, nearest 9-13, KINGSTON PARADE (Grade II, 7 m); within 250 m: Scheduled Monument, Registered Park and Garden.",
  "listedBuildingCount": 206,
  "listedBuildingGradeICount": 30,
  "listedBuildingGradeIIStarCount": 25,
  "listedBuildingGradeIICount": 151,
  "nearestListedBuildingName": "9-13, KINGSTON PARADE",
  "nearestListedBuildingGrade": "II",
  "nearestListedBuildingDistanceMeters": 7,
  "nearestListedBuildingListEntry": 1394079,
  "nearestListedBuildingListDate": "1972-08-11",
  "nearestListedBuildingUrl": "https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1394079",
  "listedBuildingsNearby": "9-13, KINGSTON PARADE (Grade II, 7 m); 11A AND 12-15, YORK STREET (Grade II, 9 m); ADVENT CHURCH (ORANGE GROVE HALL) (Grade II, 18 m); ...",
  "scheduledMonumentOnSite": false,
  "scheduledMonumentsWithinRadius": 3,
  "scheduledMonumentName": "The Roman Baths and site of Roman town, Bath",
  "scheduledMonumentListEntry": 1004678,
  "scheduledMonumentUrl": "https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1004678",
  "registeredParkGardenOnSite": false,
  "registeredParksGardensWithinRadius": 1,
  "registeredParkGardenName": "PARADE GARDENS, BATH",
  "registeredParkGardenGrade": "II",
  "registeredParkGardenListEntry": 1001630,
  "registeredParkGardenUrl": "https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1001630",
  "battlefieldOnSite": false,
  "battlefieldsWithinRadius": 0,
  "battlefieldName": null,
  "protectedWreckOnSite": false,
  "protectedWrecksWithinRadius": 0,
  "worldHeritageSiteOnSite": true,
  "worldHeritageSitesWithinRadius": 1,
  "worldHeritageSiteName": "City of Bath",
  "worldHeritageSiteListEntry": 1000103,
  "worldHeritageSiteUrl": "https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1000103",
  "conservationAreaOnSite": true,
  "conservationAreaName": "Bath",
  "conservationAreaUrl": "https://www.planning.data.gov.uk/entity/44006636",
  "conservationAreaDocumentationUrl": "https://beta.bathnes.gov.uk/view-conservation-area-character-appraisals",
  "conservationAreaDataNearby": true,
  "article4DirectionAreaOnSite": false,
  "article4DirectionAreaName": null,
  "dataObtained": "2026-09-23",
  "note": null
}

All three rows from the same run:

Input	Listed buildings within 250 m	Nearest	Conservation area	Other designations on site
BA1 1LT (Listing 1042)	206 (30 Grade I, 25 Grade II*, 151 Grade II)	9-13, Kingston Parade (II), 7 m	Bath	World Heritage Site (City of Bath)
51.1789,-1.8262 (Stonehenge)	2	Milestone opposite Stonehenge (II), 81 m	—	Scheduled Monument, World Heritage Site, Article 4 Direction Area
MK9 3QA (Milton Keynes)	0	—	—	Article 4 Direction Area (HIMO)

Unknown postcodes, places outside England and invalid input return one row that says what to change. These rows are not charged (only the per-run start fee applies). Real output:

{"status": "error", "input": "CF10 1EP", "label": null, "postcode": "CF10 1EP", "error": "Location #4 (CF10 1EP) is in Wales; this Actor covers England only (Wales is covered by Cadw)."}
{"status": "not_found", "input": "ZZ9 9ZZ", "label": null, "postcode": "ZZ9 9ZZ", "error": "Postcode ZZ9 9ZZ was not found in the current ONS Postcode Directory (it may be mistyped, new or terminated); check it or pass \"latitude,longitude\" instead."}

Output fields

Field	Meaning
status	ok, not_found or error
input, label	What you passed, and your label
postcode, latitude, longitude, adminDistrict	Normalised postcode (if given), the point that was checked, and the local authority
searchRadiusMeters	The radius used for this row
insideDesignatedArea	true when the point itself is inside a conservation area, article 4 direction area, scheduled monument, registered park and garden, registered battlefield, protected wreck site or World Heritage Site
anyHeritageWithinRadius	true when anything at all was found: a designation covering the point, or any listed building / designated area within the radius. In most English town centres some listed building is within 250 m, so use insideDesignatedArea and the distances for decisions
designationsOnSite	The designations that cover the point itself, e.g. "World Heritage Site; Conservation Area"
heritageSummary	One English sentence summarising the row (handy for AI agents and reports)
listedBuildingCount, listedBuildingGradeICount, listedBuildingGradeIIStarCount, listedBuildingGradeIICount	Listed buildings within the radius, in total and by grade
nearestListedBuildingName, ...Grade, ...DistanceMeters, ...ListEntry, ...ListDate, ...Url	The nearest listed building: name, grade, distance in metres, National Heritage List entry number, date first listed and its official page
listedBuildingsNearby	Up to maxListedBuildings nearby listed buildings as Name (Grade, distance), nearest first
conservationAreaOnSite, conservationAreaName, conservationAreaUrl, conservationAreaDocumentationUrl	Whether the point is inside a conservation area, its name, its record on planning.data.gov.uk and the council's own page
conservationAreaDataNearby	true when the national dataset has at least one conservation area within about 5 km of the point. false means the council has probably not published its boundaries (for example Cheshire West and Chester in September 2026), so conservationAreaOnSite: false cannot be trusted for that row — heritageSummary then says so
article4DirectionAreaOnSite, article4DirectionAreaName, article4DirectionAreaUrl, article4DirectionAreaDocumentationUrl	The same for article 4 direction areas (permitted development rights withdrawn). Only directions currently in force; revoked ones are excluded
scheduledMonumentOnSite, scheduledMonumentsWithinRadius, scheduledMonumentName, scheduledMonumentListEntry, scheduledMonumentUrl	Scheduled monuments: on the point, and how many are within the radius
registeredParkGardenOnSite, registeredParksGardensWithinRadius, registeredParkGardenName, registeredParkGardenGrade, registeredParkGardenListEntry, registeredParkGardenUrl	Registered parks and gardens (these also have grades I / II* / II)
battlefieldOnSite, battlefieldsWithinRadius, battlefieldName, battlefieldListEntry, battlefieldUrl	Registered battlefields (47 in England)
protectedWreckOnSite, protectedWrecksWithinRadius, protectedWreckName, protectedWreckListEntry, protectedWreckUrl	Protected wreck sites (57)
worldHeritageSiteOnSite, worldHeritageSitesWithinRadius, worldHeritageSiteName, worldHeritageSiteListEntry, worldHeritageSiteUrl	World Heritage Sites (28)
locationSource, source, attribution, dataObtained, sourceUrl	Where the point and the heritage data come from, the attribution you must pass on, the date the data was obtained, and the exact Historic England request used
note	Set when more listed buildings are in the radius than the Actor lists (counts stay complete)
error	On not_found / error rows: one sentence explaining what to change

How much does a heritage check cost?

This Actor uses Pay per event pricing — you pay per location checked, not for compute time:

Event	Price	When it is charged
Actor start	$0.001	Once per run (charged by Apify on every run, including runs where every input is invalid)
Heritage check (result-row)	$0.005 ($5 per 1,000)	Once per ok row (one location checked). not_found and error rows are not charged

Example	Locations	Cost per run
One address ("Is this property listed?")	1	$0.006
A buyer's shortlist	20	$0.101
A portfolio or a day of new listings	1,000	$5.001

For comparison, a planning report that covers listed buildings and conservation areas costs £42 (Landmark Planning) to £72 (Plansearch Plus) per property, and the local authority search in an English conveyancing transaction from about £75 — this Actor is the screening step before you decide which properties need one. There is no monthly fee and no minimum.

Use the maximum cost per run option when you start the Actor to cap spending. If the limit is reached, the Actor stops before checking further locations (they are not looked up or charged) and says so in the status message.

Use via API & MCP (AI agents)

Apify API (HTTP). Run the Actor and get the rows in one call:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/japan-open-data~england-heritage-constraint-lookup/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"locations": ["BA1 1LT", "MK9 3QA", "51.5055,-0.0754"]}'

Python (apify-client):

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")
listings = [{"postcode": "BA1 1LT", "label": "1042"}, {"postcode": "YO1 9WP", "label": "1043"}]
run = client.actor("japan-open-data/england-heritage-constraint-lookup").call(run_input={"locations": listings})
for row in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(row["label"], row["status"], row.get("listedBuildingCount"), row.get("conservationAreaName"), row.get("error"))

MCP (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other AI agents). Add this Actor as a tool through the Apify MCP server (https://mcp.apify.com), for example with ?tools=japan-open-data/england-heritage-constraint-lookup. Only locations is required, so an agent can call it with {"locations": ["<postcode>"]}.

Recommended agent settings:

• "Is this address listed or in a conservation area?" → {"locations": ["<postcode>"]} and read heritageSummary. For a yes/no, use insideDesignatedArea and conservationAreaOnSite, not anyHeritageWithinRadius (in most town centres some listed building is within 250 m).
• If conservationAreaDataNearby is false, tell the user the council has not published conservation area boundaries and they should check with the council.
• Many properties at once → pass all of them in one run (up to 1,000), each with a label, and match rows back by label.
• Wider context (a whole street or site) → raise radiusMeters to 500 or 1,000.
• Always check status; on not_found / error show the error sentence to the user. Remind users that a listed building is identified by a single official point, so "no listed building within 250 m" is not proof that a specific building is unlisted.

FAQ

Can I use this instead of a local authority search or a heritage consultant? No. It returns public, national map data for screening. For a transaction, a planning application or a consent decision, use the local authority search and the official National Heritage List entry.

Does listedBuildingCount = 0 mean my building is definitely not listed? It means no listed building's official point falls within your radius. Historic England publishes a single point (and, for listings since April 2011, a mapped extent) for each of the 379,685 entries, so always confirm an individual building on its National Heritage List entry page.

Why are conservation areas not part of the National Heritage List? Conservation areas are designated by local councils, not by Historic England, so they are published separately. This Actor takes them (and article 4 direction areas) from the government's Planning Data Platform, which collects council boundaries into one national dataset.

Are all conservation areas included? The national dataset held 10,953 conservation areas and 7,373 article 4 direction areas (7,338 still in force) when this Actor was built. Most English councils have published their boundaries there, but some have not — for example, no conservation area was published within 5 km of Chester city centre in September 2026. Every row therefore carries conservationAreaDataNearby: when it is false, treat conservationAreaOnSite: false as "unknown" and check with the council.

Does it include article 4 directions that have been cancelled? No. Only directions currently in force are returned; the 35 revoked ones in the national dataset are filtered out.

Is it legal to use this data commercially? Yes. Both sources are published under the Open Government Licence v3.0, which allows commercial use and re-use as long as you keep the attribution. Every row carries the exact attribution text in attribution.

Can I check hundreds of postcodes at once? Yes — up to 1,000 postcodes or coordinates per run, each with an optional label. You get one row per location, in input order, so you can join the results back to your spreadsheet.

Does it cover Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland? No. Those locations return an error row that is not charged. Tell us on the Issues tab if you need them.

How fresh is the data? Every run queries the live published services. Historic England updates the National Heritage List daily; the Planning Data Platform is updated as councils publish.

Data source, attribution and caveats

• Listed buildings, scheduled monuments, registered parks and gardens, registered battlefields, protected wreck sites, World Heritage Sites: Historic England, National Heritage List for England (NHLE), the only official register of nationally protected historic buildings and sites in England. https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/
• Attribution (Historic England data): © Historic England 2026. Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Under the Historic England Open Data Hub terms, if you pass this data on you must include the same attribution and require anyone you pass it to do the same.
• Currency: the dataObtained field on every row is the date the data was read. The most up-to-date Historic England data can always be obtained from HistoricEngland.org.uk.
• Conservation areas and article 4 direction areas: Planning Data Platform, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. https://www.planning.data.gov.uk/dataset/conservation-area and https://www.planning.data.gov.uk/dataset/article-4-direction-area — both published with licence: ogl3. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
• Postcodes: postcode centroids via postcodes.io from the ONS Postcode Directory. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right; Contains Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right; Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Northern Ireland (BT) postcodes are not looked up.
• England check for coordinates: ONS Countries (December 2024) Boundaries UK BUC. Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
• Spatial data shows location only. Historic England states that its spatial data is provided solely to indicate the location of an asset, and that a listed building polygon shows the principal building and does not define the curtilage (the wider area that listing protection can extend to). Boundaries are indicative.
• Licensed "as is". Historic England excludes all warranties and is not liable for errors, omissions or decisions made on the basis of this data. The same applies to this Actor.
• Not affiliated: this Actor is an independent project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Historic England, MHCLG, Ordnance Survey, ONS or postcodes.io. Using this data does not suggest any official status.
• Access: the Actor uses only the published Historic England ArcGIS FeatureServer and the public planning.data.gov.uk and postcodes.io APIs, about 9–13 small requests per location, at most 6 requests in flight, and identifies itself in the User-Agent.
• No personal data: only the names, grades, dates and reference numbers of designated heritage assets, and the postcodes/points you provide. Owner and occupier names are not in these datasets and are never returned.

Known limitations

• England only. Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are not covered.
• Postcode = one point. Postcodes are checked at their centroid; use coordinates for a specific building.
• Listed buildings are points. Each listing is matched by its official point (the building centroid), so distances are measured to that point, not to the building's walls. Only about 10,000 of the 379,685 entries have a mapped extent (listings and substantive amendments since 4 April 2011), so this Actor does not attempt a "your building is listed" yes/no answer.
• Conservation areas and article 4 areas are tested at the point only, not within the radius, and depend on councils having published their boundaries (10,953 and 7,338 in-force areas at build time). Where a council has published none nearby, conservationAreaDataNearby is false.
• Dense centres. The Actor reads up to 300 listed building points per location; in places with more (for example 1,280 within 1,000 m of Bath Abbey) the counts and the nearest building stay correct, listedBuildingsNearby is not exhaustive, and note says so.
• Curtilage and interiors. Listing can cover structures within the curtilage of a listed building and its interior; none of that is in the map data.
• Speed. About 1 second per location in the cloud (32 locations took 33 seconds including start-up); 1,000 locations take roughly 15–25 minutes.

Troubleshooting

What you see	Why	What to do
not_found: postcode not in the ONS Postcode Directory	Typo, a brand-new postcode, or a terminated one	Check the postcode, or pass "latitude,longitude"
error: "is in Wales / Scotland / Northern Ireland"	England only	Use Cadw, Historic Environment Scotland or the Department for Communities
error: "latitude and longitude may be swapped"	You passed "-1.8262,51.1789"	Pass latitude first: "51.1789,-1.8262"
conservationAreaDataNearby: false	The council has not published conservation areas to the national dataset	Check the council's own conservation area map
note says the list is not exhaustive	More than 300 listed buildings in the radius	Counts are still complete; use a smaller radiusMeters for a full list
anyHeritageWithinRadius is true almost everywhere	Town centres nearly always have a listed building within 250 m	Use insideDesignatedArea, the grade counts and the nearest distance instead

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Feedback

Found a wrong value or need another layer? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab with your input and what you expected. Already on the list for the next version: an "is this point on a listed building?" check using the official listed building outlines, which permitted development rights each article 4 direction removes, and tree preservation orders. Wales and Scotland on request.