Nottingham’s Local Heritage List

The Local List

Nottingham is currently developing a Local Heritage List (“Local List”).

This Local List identifies those buildings of heritage value to Nottingham which are not currently given national protection through Historic England listing.

This includes public houses and buildings formerly associated with the brewing industry.

Many of Nottingham’s most significant historic buildings and heritage assets, including public houses, are protected either by national listing, such as Listed Buildings, Scheduled Monuments or Registered Parks and Gardens or due to their location, such as being in a conservation area.

However, many more significant buildings, historic landscapes and archaeological remains are not formally recognised, meaning they are at risk of being overlooked and being lost through demolition. This includes a number of Nottingham’s surviving public houses.

The recognition of such a building by means of an entry on the Local List may help such buildings remain a key part of the Nottingham’s heritage for the benefit of future generations by:

Highlighting key heritage assets which showcase Nottingham’s history
Providing links to Nottingham’s unique past
Emphasising the local importance of a given heritage asset

Historic England’s short publication “Local Heritage Listing: Identifying and Conserving Local Heritage – Historic England Advice Note 7” (2nd edition) dated 27th January 2021 is well worth a read.

Nottingham’s Local List and Interactive Map

Below is a link to an online map, which shows candidates for the Local List that have either been Rejected, Not Assessed by the Selection Panel, Recommended for Addition by the Selection Panel or formally Adopted by Nottingham City Council. If you click on any candidate for the Local List reasons will be given information about the decision that has been made. You can search by the Heritage Asset ID number and location in the search box.

Useful links to Nottingham’s Local List include:

Whatpub pub-finder website

For those Heritage Asset Pubs which still survive as trading public houses, clicking on the pub name links to the pubs entry on CAMRA’s national “Whatpub” website. This local information is maintained by Nottingham CAMRA and should be reasonably up-to-date.

Background to the Local List

Somewhat disappointingly for a major English local authority, Nottingham City Council has come very late to the importance of establishing and maintaining a Local Heritage list.

During the 1990s, an unofficial draft Local List was maintained by some of the local authority officers. This in turn was handed to Nottingham Civic Society, which produced an updated version dated September 2013. The Civic Society hoped that this might form the basis for a formal list supported by the City Council.

That a Local List in now being established is a very welcome development.

Nottingham CAMRA’s Involvement

In 2016, Nottingham CAMRA reviewed the Civic Society list, anotating changes and submitted additional pieces of useful information. In addition, for each suriving public house on the Civic Society’s 2013 Draft Local List, Nottingham CAMRA recorded the existence of the Draft Local List entry on the pub’s “Whatpub” page.

When the Council began establishing the Local List, Nottingham CAMRA forwarded the amended list document to the Council’s Heritage Team.

Nottingham CAMRA is a consultee to the on-going roll-out of the Local List providing additional information where requested and reviewing relevant Heritage Asset proposals.

Critique

The usefulness of an entry on this list in providing real protection for historic public houses list remains to be seen.

As with listed building status or a location in a conservation area, an entry on the Local List only affords real protection if local councillors and local authority officers honour the spirit of an entry on the list is intended to convey.

Whilst Nottingham CAMRA is fully supportive of the City Council’s work in developing this list there are a number of observations to be made with regard to the loss of recent public houses: