Geography
UNESCO Heritage Sites in the UK
UNESCO World Heritage Sites located in the United Kingdom.
unescoukheritageculture
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Site↕ | Image↕ | Location↕ | Year listed↕ | UNESCO data↕ | Description↕ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Giant's Causeway and Causeway Coast | County Antrim, Northern Ireland | 1,986 | 369bis; vii, viii (natural) | The landscape with thousands of basalt columns was created by volcanic activity in the Tertiary, around 60 million years ago. The resulting land formations on one hand inspired legends of giants and on the other hand influenced the development of Earth sciences over the last 300 years. A minor boundary modification of the site took place in 2016. | |
| Durham Castle and Cathedral | Durham, England | 1,986 | 370bis; ii, iv, vi (cultural) | Durham Cathedral (pictured), built in the late 11th and early 12th centuries, is a prominent example of Norman architecture in England and vaulting of the cathedral was part of the advent of Gothic architecture. The cathedral houses relics of St Cuthbert and Bede and was a centre of a Benedictine monastic community. The Norman castle was the residence of the Durham prince-bishops. A minor boundary modification of the site took place in 2008. | |
| Ironbridge Gorge | Shropshire, England | 1,986 | 371; i, ii, iv, vi (cultural) | In the early 18th century, Ironbridge Gorge was an early site of the Industrial Revolution. A blast furnace built by Abraham Darby I in Coalbrookdale was the first to use coke to smelt iron. Today, the industrial heritage is well preserved, with mines, manufacturing plants, workers houses, and transport systems. The Iron Bridge (pictured), constructed in 1779 by Abraham Darby III, was world's first metal bridge. | |
| Studley Royal Park including the Ruins of Fountains Abbey | North Yorkshire, England | 1,986 | 372bis; i, iv (cultural) | The estate comprises 18th century landscaped gardens, historic buildings, water features, and parks. The garden is an outstanding example of an English garden. Buildings in the park include the ruins of the 12th century Fountains Abbey (a former Cistercian monastery, pictured) and the Victorian Gothic St Mary's church. A minor boundary modification of the site took place in 2012. | |
| Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites | Wiltshire, England | 1,986 | 373bis; i, ii, iii (cultural) | This site comprises a series of megalithic monuments that were created by Neolithic and Bronze Age societies around 3700 to 1600 BCE. Stonehenge (pictured) is the world's most architecturally sophisticated prehistoric stone circle while Avebury has the world's largest stone circle and Silbury Hill, a large artificial mound. The sites provide an insight into the culture, technology, and astronomical knowledge of the societies that created them. A minor boundary modification of the site took place in 2008. | |
| Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd | Four sites in north Wales | 1,986 | 374; i, iii, iv (cultural) | During the reign of Edward I of England (1272–1307), a series of castles were constructed in Wales with the purpose of subduing the population and establishing English colonies in the region. Four castles are listed: Beaumaris (pictured), Caernarfon, Conwy, and Harlech. These castles are considered the pinnacle of military architecture by military historians. | |
| St Kilda | Outer Hebrides, Scotland | 1,986 | 387ter; iii, v, vii, ix, x (mixed) | The remote archipelago of volcanic origin was shaped by weathering and glaciation that produced a dramatic landscape with high cliffs. The islands are important habitat for seabirds such as the northern gannet, Atlantic puffin, and northern fulmar, who nest there in large numbers. Initially listed for its natural significance, the site was expanded in 2004 and 2005 to account for its cultural significance. The islands were inhabited for at least two millennia, with people subsisting in extreme climate on products of birds and sheep farming. Their activities resulted in a specific cultural landscape with houses, enclosures, and storage structures. The last permanent inhabitants left the islands in 1930. | |
| Blenheim Palace | Oxfordshire, England | 1,987 | 425; ii, iv (cultural) | The residence of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, was designed by architects John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor in the early 18th century. The associated park was landscaped by Capability Brown. The palace celebrated victory over the French and is significant for establishing English romantic architecture as a separate entity from French classical architecture. It was also the home of Sir Winston Churchill. | |
| Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbey including Saint Margaret's Church | Greater London, England | 1,987 | 426bis; i, ii, iv (cultural) | The buildings comprising this site are deeply connected to the British monarchy. The medieval Westminster Abbey, with representative stages of the Gothic architecture, is the place where British monarchs are crowned, married, and buried. The Westminster Palace (pictured), the seat of the Parliament, was rebuilt after 1840 in the neo-Gothic style, with the iconic Big Ben (Elizabeth Tower). St Margaret's Church is the parish church and was built in the Perpendicular Gothic style. | |
| City of Bath | Somerset, England | 1,987 | 428; i, ii, iv (cultural) | Bath was founded in the 1st century CE under the Romans who used it as a spa. The Roman Baths (pictured) are still preserved. It was a centre for wool industry in the Middle Ages, the Bath Abbey dates to that period. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the city was developed by Georgian architects who constructed architectural ensembles such as the Circus and the Royal Crescent. Bath is also a part of a separate transnational site The Great Spa Towns of Europe. | |
| Frontiers of the Roman Empire* | Sites in England and Scotland | 1,987 | 430ter; ii, ii, iv (cultural) | Limes was a defense system, delimiting the borders of the Roman Empire that reached its peak in the 2nd century CE. Today, there are remains of the walls, forts, ditches, watchtowers, and civilian settlements. Hadrian's Wall (pictured), constructed c. 122 CE, was listed in 1987. The Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes in today's Germany was added to the site in 2005 and the Antonine Wall, the construction of which started in 142 CE, was added in 2008. These three fortification systems demonstrate the sophistication of Roman military engineering and were influential in the following historical periods. | |
| Henderson Island | Pitcairn Islands | 1,988 | 487; vii, x (natural) | The largest of the Pitcairn Islands is an uplifted coral atoll in the South Pacific. Due to being unsuitable for agriculture and with little fresh water, is has remained uninhabited and thus largely untouched by human impact. For a tropical island of its size, it has a remarkable biological diversity, with numerous endemic animal and plant species, including four species of land birds. It is also an important nesting site for seabirds. The island provides insight into evolution and speciation of flora and fauna in an island environment. | |
| Tower of London | Greater London, England | 1,988 | 488; ii, iv (cultural) | Commissioned by William the Conqueror following the Norman conquest of England, the Tower of London is a symbol of power and an example of Norman military architecture that spread across England. Additions in the following centuries made the castle one of the most influential buildings of its kind in England. The White Tower, the centre of the fortress, is pictured. | |
| Canterbury Cathedral, St Augustine's Abbey, and St Martin's Church | Kent, England | 1,988 | 496; i, ii, vi (cultural) | St Martin's Church is the oldest church in England. The church and St Augustine's Abbey, today in ruins, were founded during the early stages of the introduction of Christianity to the Anglo-Saxons, in the late 6th century. The cathedral (pictured) exhibits Romanesque and early Gothic architecture, and is the seat of the Church of England. It saw partial rebuilding after a fire in 1174. | |
| Old and New Towns of Edinburgh | Edinburgh, Scotland | 1,995 | 728; ii, iv (cultural) | Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland since the 15th century, comprises two distinct districts. The medieval Old Town located on a ridge and dominated by the Edinburgh Castle (pictured) and preserves the old street layout. Important historical buildings include St Giles' Cathedral and Holyrood Palace. The New Town was built in the Georgian era in the 18th and 19th centuries. The carefully planned layout of the urban ensembles had major influence on urban planning in Europe and beyond, | |
| Gough and Inaccessible Islands | Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha | 1,995 | 740bis; vii, v (natural) | The two islands in the Southern Atlantic Ocean are eroded remains of ancient volcanoes. They represent some of the least disturbed cool temperate island ecosystems in that part of the world and are especially important for seabirds that nest there in colonies. There are also some endemic species of land birds and numerous endemic plant species. Gough Island Wildlife Reserve was independently listed in 1995, Inaccessible Island was added in 2004. | |
| Maritime Greenwich | Greater London, England | 1,997 | 795; i, ii, iv, vi (cultural) | Greenwich has some of the first examples of Palladian architecture in England, including the Queen's House by Inigo Jones, and buildings designed by Christopher Wren (the Old Royal Naval College pictured). The area is also significant for the Royal Observatory where the understanding of astronomy and navigation were developed, with Greenwich Mean Time and Greenwich meridian becoming established as world standards. | |
| Heart of Neolithic Orkney | Orkney, Scotland | 1,999 | 514bis; i, ii, iii, iv (cultural) | The site comprises four groups of monuments and archaeological sites related to a Neolithic culture dating to around 5,000 years ago. Skara Brae (pictured) is the best preserved Neolithic settlement in northern Europe. Other sites are Maeshowe, a chambered cairn and passage grave, and two megalithic monuments, the Ring of Brodgar and the Standing Stones of Stenness. | |
| Historic Town of St George and Related Fortifications, Bermuda | Bermuda | 2,000 | 983; iv (cultural) | St. George's, founded in 1612, is the oldest surviving English settlement in the Americas and Britain's main New World naval base after the American Revolution. Between the 17th and 20th centuries, the town fortifications were repeatedly being reconstructed in line with the advances in artillery development. | |
| Blaenavon Industrial Landscape | Blaenavon, Wales | 2,000 | 984; iii, iv (cultural) | In the 19th century, Wales was the world's foremost producer of iron and coal. Blaenavon is an example of the landscape created by the industrial processes associated with the production of these materials. The site includes quarries, public buildings, workers' housing, and a railway. | |
| New Lanark | South Lanarkshire, Scotland | 2,001 | 429rev; ii, iv, vi (cultural) | The village was founded in 1785 by Robert Owen, a textile manufacturer, social reformer, and founder of utopian socialism, to house workers in the cotton mills. The village became a model for industrial communities in the 19th and 20th centuries and was a precursor to the garden city movement. | |
| Saltaire | West Yorkshire, England | 2,001 | 1028; ii, iv (cultural) | Saltaire was founded Titus Salt as a model village for his workers at cotton mills. The village comprises factory buildings (Salts Mill pictured), housing, and public buildings. It represents an example of 19th-century philanthropic paternalism and was influential in the garden city movement. | |
| Dorset and East Devon Coast | Devon and Dorset, England | 2,001 | 1029; vii (natural) | The site spans 185 million years of geological history, coastal erosion having exposed an almost continuous sequence of rock formation covering the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Fossils include marine and terrestrial vertebrates and invertebrates. The findings in the last 300 years have greatly influenced the development of palaentology, geology, and geomorphology. | |
| Derwent Valley Mills | Derbyshire, England | 2,001 | 1030; ii, iv (cultural) | Derwent Valley was the area where Richard Arkwright developed a water-powered spinning frame for cotton mills in 1771. This led to the development of the modern factory system. This transformed a previously rural landscape with construction of factory buildings and housing for workers and managers. This approach became a model for factories in the following centuries worldwide. | |
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Greater London, England | 2,003 | 1084; ii, iv (cultural) | The gardens, founded in 1759, were influential in the development of botany, economic botany, ecology, and plant diversity. They host extensive botanical collections of both conserved and living plants, associated with the economic exchange throughout the world. They are known both for their landscape design and architectural features, including an orangery, follies, and iron-framed glasshouses (the Palm House pictured). | |
| Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape | Cornwall and Devon, England | 2,006 | 1215; ii, iii, iv (cultural) | Tin and copper mining in Devon and Cornwall boomed in the 18th and 19th centuries, and at its peak the area produced two-thirds of the world's copper. The techniques and technology involved in deep mining developed in Devon and Cornwall were used around the world. The mining industry transformed the landscape and today numerous sites are still visible, including remains of mines, engineering houses, railways, harbours, as well as newly founded towns and villages. Engine houses at Botallack Mine are pictured. | |
| Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal | Wrexham, Wales Shropshire, England | 2,009 | 1303; i, ii, iv (cultural) | The artificial waterway is an important feature of civil engineering from the early 19th century and was constructed to further the Industrial Revolution. The aqueduct, a monumental yet elegant construction, was designed by Thomas Telford. It is set on masonry pillars and has iron arches. The canal illustrates the ways technology was used to overcome the challenges of a difficult terrain. | |
| The Forth Bridge | Edinburgh and Fife, Scotland | 2,015 | 1485; i, iv (cultural) | The cantilever railway bridge, crossing the Firth of Forth, opened in 1890 and was at that point the bridge with the longest span in the world (541 m (1,775 ft)). It is made of mild steel, which at the time of its construction was a relatively novel material. The bridge represents an important engineering achievement of the period when rail transport was transforming the world. | |
| Gorham's Cave Complex | Gibraltar | 2,015 | 1500; iii (cultural) | The four caves at the eastern side of the Rock of Gibraltar provide evidence of Neanderthal occupation at different times over a period of more than 100,000 years. Findings provide extensive insight into the life of these people, including the food resources they were exploiting and possible indications of abstract art, with rock carvings dated to more than 39,000 years ago. Later archaeological layers indicate the occupation by early modern human populations. | |
| The English Lake District | Cumbria, England | 2,017 | 422rev; ii, v, vi (cultural) | The cultural landscape of the Lake District has been shaped by the glaciers during the Ice Age and later by agro-pastoral communities. There are mountains, lakes, gardens, grand houses, and parks. The landscape was celebrated during the picturesque and romantic movements in visual arts and literature from the 18th century on. The area around Helvellyn is pictured. | |
| Jodrell Bank Observatory | Cheshire, England | 2,019 | 1594; i, ii, iv, vi (cultural) | The astronomical observatory was founded in 1945. In its early years, it marked the transition from optical to radio astronomy which in turn provided new insight into the universe. The observatory has several telescopes (the largest of them, the Lovell Telescope is pictured). It was influential in studies of cosmic rays, quasars, meteorites, spacecraft tracking, and quantum optics. It remains operational today. | |
| The Great Spa Towns of Europe* | Somerset, England | 2,021 | 1613; ii, iii (cultural) | This transnational site comprises 11 spa towns in seven European countries where mineral waters were used for healing and therapeutic purposes before the development of industrial medication in the 19th century. Bath (Roman Baths pictured) is listed in the UK. | |
| The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales | Several sites in Wales | 2,021 | 1633; ii, iv (cultural) | This site comprises six complexes of mines and quarries where slate was initially produced during the Roman times and then from the late 18th century on an industrial scale. In the late 19th century, the region produced a third of the world's supply of slate for roof tiles and architectural slabs, and the use of slate influenced the development of Georgian architecture. Technological solutions developed here were later applied to other slate mines worldwide. A transporter incline from the Dinorwic quarry is pictured. | |
| The Flow Country | Caithness, Sutherland, Scotland | 2,024 | 1722; ix (natural) | The site comprises seven areas in northern Scotland with extensive blanket bog, a landscape that has been actively forming by accumulation of peat since the end of the Last Glacial Period over last 9,000 years. It supports diverse bird communities and is important in studies of peat bog ecosystems. | |
| Moravian Church Settlements* | County Antrim, Northern Ireland | 2,024 | 1468bis; iii, iv (cultural) | The settlements of the Moravian Church, a Protestant denomination, from the second half of the 18th century are planned cities, reflecting the egalitarian philosophy of the community. They share similar urban layouts, including open and green spaces, a congregational building, cemetery, sanctuary, and houses for communal living, separated by age, gender, and marital status. Christiansfeld in Denmark has been listed as a World Heritage Site in 2015. The site was extended in 2024 to include the Historic Moravian Bethlehem District in the United States, Herrnhut in Germany, and Gracehill in the United Kingdom (the church building pictured). |
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