Images of England
Images of England was an online photo archive of England’s listed buildings as they stood in February 2002. It contains about 323,000 colour images, each linked to its listing and description. The collection is a snapshot, not a current record: it only included listings up to February 2001 and was not updated when listings changed. The project started in October 1999, with the final images uploaded in September 2008, and was funded by English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund. The aim was to photograph roughly 370,000 listed items and provide free online access, creating one of the largest picture libraries of buildings at the time. It’s part of the Historic England Archive.
As of August 2019, the Images of England content moved to Historic England’s website alongside the National Heritage List for England. The project produced one defining image per item, plus a text listing written by historic building experts. Some records show no image for various reasons. Photos of prisons required permission from the Prison Service, and some private properties could be photographed only if allowed by owners or through exemptions. The project relied on hundreds of volunteer photographers who typically took one high‑quality defining image per building from publicly accessible land, using standard 35 mm film. Photographers were credited and kept their copyright.
In August 2019 the Images of England site closed, and its photos were made available on the National Heritage List for England, together with the Missing Pieces Project, which adds more recent photos.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 05:30 (CET).