London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Tuesday, Oct 28, 2025

Historic England relists nine sites to mark 70th anniversary of Festival of Britain

Historic England relists nine sites to mark 70th anniversary of Festival of Britain

Newbury Park bus station in Ilford and Royal Festival Hall in London relisted

Not many people get wildly excited by a concrete bus shelter but Elain Harwood is, proudly and unapologetically, one of them. “It is grand, I love it … it is a simple curve and absolutely as minimal as could be.”

Harwood, an architectural historian with Historic England, is enthusing about Newbury Park bus station in Ilford, one of nine sites being recognised by Historic England to mark the 70th anniversary of the Festival of Britain.

On Thursday it announced that two sites were having their listing upgraded and a further seven are being relisted because of their festival links.

The relistings include the Royal Festival Hall, Barbara Hepworth’s sculpture Contrapuntal Forms and the bus station. Harwood, senior architectural investigator at Historic England, said the curved concrete structure, with its copper panelled roof, was a truly beautiful thing.

View of the Royal Festival Hall from across the river


“It looks like an Indian dosa, it looks so thin you could just snap it with your finger, it is so light.”

It was designed in 1937 by Oliver Hill. The war meant construction was delayed until the late 1940s and when it finally arrived it went down a storm, described by one critic as “an extraordinary bit of bravura”. In 1951 it gained the most votes in architectural awards handed out by the festival to reward the nation’s best postwar civic design.

The new listings are being announced to remember a festival which this week, 70 years ago, would have been at its busiest.

Running from May until September it was intended as a spirit-raising national exhibition celebrating design, science, technology, architecture, industry, and the arts. It was about optimism and recovery after the worst of times.

Events took place across Britain and more than 8 million people visited London in the summer of 1951. “The festival was the last great national event before the advent of mass television, so people had to go and see it for themselves,” said Harwood.

The upgraded listings include Calvary Charismatic Baptist Church, originally Trinity Congregational Church, in Poplar. It was built in the early 1950s as part of the festival’s live architectural exhibition which showcased postwar redevelopment in real time.

The church, Historic England says, is “one of the first buildings in Britain to adopt a consciously modern Scandinavian style” and has a strikingly high tower because it shows off a bell that was all that survived a direct German hit on the previous church.

Nearby on the Lansbury estate was a new school, shops and show homes. “You could get the boat from the Royal Festival Hall to docklands and go and tour this site,” said Harwood. “The show homes were a way of showing off British manufacturing but also seeing how you might furnish your own council house in a modern way.”

Relisting of sites essentially involves updating and adding to listing descriptions, some of which were written 30 years ago. Upgrading from Grade II to Grade II* means places are eligible for more grant money.

The second upgraded site is Christ Church in Coventry, built between 1956 and 1958 and directly inspired by the festival. Its lavish interior was described by the Architects Journal as “Pleasure Gardens pastiche”.

The Hepworth relisting celebrates the joy of putting great public art in accessible spaces.

The 10ft high sculpture was one of many artworks commissioned for the festival by the Arts Council and stood outside the “Dome of Discovery” on the South Bank.

After the festival, anything that could be easily detached and shifted was offered to local authorities. Harlow was first to put its hand up and the sculpture takes pride of place on a housing estate.

“That’s the extra glory of it,” said Harwood. “It just sits outside a block of flats, very happily … it is appreciated and has become part of the community.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Bill Gates at 70: “I Have a Real Fear of Artificial Intelligence – and Also Regret”
Elon Musk Unveils Grokipedia: An AI-Driven Alternative to Wikipedia
Saudi Arabia Unveils Vision for First-Ever "Sky Stadium" Suspended Over Desert Floor
Amazon Announces 14 000 Corporate Job Cuts as AI Investment Accelerates
UK Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since March, Food Leads the Decline
London Stock Exchange Group ADR (LNSTY) Earns Zacks Rank #1 Upgrade on Rising Earnings Outlook
Soap legend Tony Adams, long-time star of Crossroads, dies at 84
Rachel Reeves Signals Tax Increases Ahead of November Budget Amid £20-50 Billion Fiscal Gap
NatWest Past Gains of 314% Spotlight Opportunity — But Some Key Risks Remain
UK Launches ‘Golden Age’ of Nuclear with £38 Billion Sizewell C Approval
UK Announces £1.08 Billion Budget for Offshore Wind Auction to Boost 2030 Capacity
UK Seeks Steel Alliance with EU and US to Counter China’s Over-Capacity
UK Struggles to Balance China as Both Strategic Threat and Valued Trading Partner
Argentina’s Markets Surge as Milei’s Party Secures Major Win
British Journalist Sami Hamdi Detained by U.S. Authorities After Visa Revocation Amid Israel-Gaza Commentary
King Charles Unveils UK’s First LGBT+ Armed Forces Memorial at National Memorial Arboretum
At ninety-two and re-elected: Paul Biya secures eighth term in Cameroon amid unrest
Racist Incidents Against UK Nurses Surge by 55%
UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves Cites Shared Concerns With Trump Administration as Foundation for Early US-UK Trade Deal
Essentra plc: A Closer Look at a UK ‘Penny Stock’ Opportunity Amid Market Weakness
U.S. and China Near Deal to Avert Rare-Earth Export Controls Ahead of Trump-Xi Summit
Justin time: Justin Herbert Shields Madison Beer with Impressive Reflex at Lakers Game
Russia’s President Putin Declares Burevestnik Nuclear Cruise Missile Ready for Deployment
Giuffre’s Memoir Alleges Maxwell Claimed Sexual Act with Clooney
House Republicans Move to Strip NYC Mayoral Front-Runner Zohran Mamdani of U.S. Citizenship
Record-High Spoiled Ballots Signal Voter Discontent in Ireland’s 2025 Presidential Election
Philippines’ Taal Volcano Erupts Overnight with 2.4 km Ash Plume
Albania’s Virtual AI 'Minister' Diella Set to 'Birth' Eighty-Three Digital Assistants for MPs
Tesla Unveils Vision for Optimus V3 as ‘Biggest Product of All Time’, Including Surgical Capabilities
Francis Ford Coppola Auctions Luxury Watches After Self-Financed Film Flop
Convicted Sex Offender Mistakenly Freed by UK Prison Service Arrested in London
United States and China Begin Constructive Trade Negotiations Ahead of Trump–Xi Summit
U.S. Treasury Sanctions Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro over Drug-Trafficking Allegations
Miss USA Crowns Nebraska’s Audrey Eckert Amid Leadership Overhaul
‘I Am Not Done’: Kamala Harris Signals Possible 2028 White House Run
NBA Faces Integrity Crisis After Mass Arrests in Gambling Scandal
Swift Heist at the Louvre Sees Eight French Crown Jewels Stolen in Under Seven Minutes
U.S. Halts Trade Talks with Canada After Ontario Ad Using Reagan Voice Triggers Diplomatic Fallout
Microsoft AI CEO: ‘We’re making an AI that you can trust your kids to use’ — but can Microsoft rebuild its own trust before fixing the industry’s?
China and Russia Deploy Seductive Espionage Networks to Infiltrate U.S. Tech Sector
Apple’s ‘iPhone Air’ Collapses After One Month — Another Major Misstep for the Tech Giant
Graham Potter Begins New Chapter as Sweden Head Coach on Short-Term Deal
Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa Alleges Poison Plot via Chocolate and Jam
Lakestar to Halt External Fundraising as Investor in Revolut and Spotify
U.S. Innovation Ranking Under Scrutiny as China Leads Output Outputs but Ranks 10th
Three Men Arrested in London on Suspicion of Spying for Russia
Porsche Reverses EV Strategy as New CEO Bets on Petrol and Hybrids
Singapore’s Prime Minister Warns of ‘Messy’ Transition to Post-American Global Order
Andreessen Horowitz Sets Sights on Ten-Billion-Dollar Fund for Tech Surge
US Administration Under President Donald Trump Reportedly Lifts Ban on Ukraine’s Use of Storm Shadow Missiles Against Russia
×