Street Furniture

A guide to outline the selection criteria used when listing street furniture.

This guide looks at the several categories of street furniture. The first comprises objects connected with the highways including street surfaces, pavements, bollards, street lighting and milestones. The second relates to the provision of public utilities such as drinking fountains, troughs, pumps and hydrants. Thirdly are letter boxes and telephone kiosks, key communications infrastructure, at least until recently.

Items of street furniture performed a range of functions, and there is inevitably cross-over with other selection guides in this area in particular. Hence whilst telephone boxes and letter boxes are treated fully in this guide, associated building types such as Post Offices are considered in the selection guide on Infrastructure: Utilities and Communications. Items relating to law, order and public security such as police boxes, gibbets, stocks and whipping posts are treated in Law and Government Buildings. In the main, small buildings and shelters such as lavatories are similarly covered in the Infrastructure: Utilities and Communications selection guide, and bus and tram shelters are considered in that on Infrastructure: Transport. Bandstands and ticket booths are discussed under Garden and Park Structures, which also considers benches and drinking fountains in addition to their consideration here. Whilst wells and well-houses, as small structures, are considered in Infrastructure: Utilities and Communications, water pumps, as street furniture, are treated here.

This is one of a series of guides which set out some of our approaches to listing buildings. Covering twenty broad categories of building types, they including historical overviews and special considerations for listing, plus select bibliographies. They are primarily intended to develop understanding of listed buildings and structures, and to offer insight into listing decision making.