Listed buildings, heritage and conservation areas

Heritage and conservation

In the Borough are designated heritage assets such as scheduled ancient monuments, listed buildings and Conservation Areas or non-designated heritage assets such as buildings of traditional local character and areas of special character. If your application for planning permission affects any of these, you need to send us a Heritage Statement. More information can be found in our by looking at our local validation list.

A procedure to enable us to review, update or add buildings to our local list of Buildings of Traditional Local Character has been adopted as a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD.) If you think we should add a building, email development.control@wokingham.gov.uk and we will let you know what detail we need. You can see what buildings are currently on the list by looking at the planning constraints map. 

The Berkshire Historic Environment Record (HER)

The Berkshire Historic Environment Record (HER) is an index of important heritage assets in Berkshire and can include

• Known archaeological sites and finds
• Historic buildings
• Designed and historic landscapes
• Parks and gardens
• Scheduled monuments

Listed Buildings 

Buildings are listed and given protection because of their special architectural or historic interest.

Buildings can be listed for a number of reasons including:

• Age or rarity
• Innovative building technique
• Part of a picturesque group of buildings
• Association with a famous person or notable event

Listed Building Consent is needed for changes to a building that would alter the special architectural or historic interest. To see listed buildings use map search on the Historic England website national heritage list.

Areas that have special architectural and historic interest can be designated as Conservation Areas. Special efforts are made to preserve these areas. Building work can still happen in them but it is likely be more restricted than other places. 

Conservation Areas

We have 16 conservation areas, as follows:

• Arborfield Cross Conservation Area study (PDF)
• Finchampstead Church Conservation Area leaflet (PDF)
• Hurst Conservation Area leaflet (PDF)
• Murdoch Road Conservation Area (PDF)
• Murdoch Road Conservation Area - Preliminary Appraisal (PDF)
• Remenham, Henley Bridge Conservation Area (PDF)
• Remenham Church Conservation Area (PDF)
• Ruscombe Conservation Area leaflet (PDF)
• Sindlesham Conservation Area leaflet (PDF)
• Sonning Conservation Area study (PDF)
• Swallowfield Conservation Area leaflet (PDF)
• Twyford Station Conservation Area leaflet (PDF)
• Twyford Village Conservation Area leaflet (PDF)
• Wargrave Conservation Area leaflet (PDF)
• Wokingham town centre and Langborough Road Conservation Area study (PDF)
• Woodley Green Conservation Area leaflet (PDF)