This photo sent me down an interesting diversion that has taken an hour of my time this evening that could well have been spent doing something more useful. Often the case. Damn you, internet!

The picture is a view out of the window of the QMC taking in some university buildings, including the Biomolecular sciences building, the Trent building, Computer sciences tower, and the Ratcliffe on Soar power station in the long distance.

I put a question into the comments – which of these buildings is listed? – because of an interesting thing someone once told me: that the ugly concrete computer science tower in University Park is a listed building. It’s possible – listing can be about noting interesting buildings, even if they’re horrible. The rationale I was given was that it was one of the first concrete prefab towers to be built, and so was on the list because it was an important structure.

I wanted to be reasonably sure of my facts – so often, these things that people tell you turn out not to be remotely true. I can’t even remember who it was who told me, but it is one of those factoids I have repeated to a lot of people.

So I googled to find out if there’s a list of Nottinghamshire’s listed buildings anywhere and found this interesting page from the City Council which talks about listing – what it’s for, what it achieves, and a few basic facts and figures about Nottingham in particular.

It also points you at a searchable national database of listed buildings, so I typed in the University’s postcode which I happened to remember (NG7 (ie Lenton) 2RD – RD? Research and Development? Geddit?) and got a huge number of returns of listed buildings within 1km of a point on the ring road. Rather unfortunate, but within that box is the Park, Nottingham’s premier Victorian housing estate, the University, with a lot of listed buildings, and Wollaton Hall and Park – and not only is the hall listed but lots of separate features are listed separately.

Browsing the list, I couldn’t see the tower itself, but I’m not sure what name it might be under, so I can’t completely rule it out. The Trent Building was definitely listed, as are all sorts of strange things, including the footbridge over the lake in Highfields Park, and the bust of Jesse Boot on University Boulevard.

A separate line of inquiry was launched by the claims on the City Council’s website:

Buildings are classified in grades to show their relative importance;
Grade I: these are buildings of exceptional interest (only about 2% of listed buildings are in this grade) Nottingham has 9 grade I listed buildings)
Grade II*: these are particularly important buildings of more than special interest (only about 4% of listed buildings) Nottingham has 31 grade II* listed buildings)
Grade II: these are buildings of special interest, which warrant every effort being made to preserve them (94% of listed buildings) Nottingham has approx. 740 grade II listed buildings)

Dearie me. You can’t give half a factoid like that and not provide more details! 9 Grade I listed buildings, you say, but what, precisely are they?

Playing with the irritating search feature, I found a way to return only Grade I listed buildings, but not a way to find only the ones within the boundaries of the City of Nottingham.

Anyway, these are the Grade I listed buildings in the city:

• Castle Museum and Art Gallery
• Nottingham Castle Outer Bailey Wall and Towers
• Nottingham Castle Gatehouse, Outer Bridge and Adjoining Gateway
• St Mary’s Church, High Pavement
• St Peter’s Church
• Clifton Hall
• D6 Building, Boots Factory site
• D10 Building, Boots Factory site
• St Mary’s Church, Clifton
• Wollaton Hall

Not quite sure how that makes 9…

I shall defer the search of the 31 Grade II* listed buildings to another day with more time to waste.

But one final interesting diversion was to plug in my own post code and see what near me is listed. And again, all sorts of odd things, including random bits of apparently unremarkable wall.

EDIT: Welcome to all readers who are here because of the City Council’s media-monitoring email. Do leave a comment to let me know you passed by. You may be interested in my next post which did list the Grade II* listed buildings