Historic England

Historic England

Formation	1 April 2015 (2015-04-01)
Legal status	Non-departmental public body
Headquarters	The Engine House, Fire Fly Avenue, Swindon, SN2 2EH[1]
Chairman	Neil Mendoza
Chief Executive	Duncan Wilson
Staff	884[2]
Website	historicengland.org.uk

Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked with protecting the historic environment of England by preserving and listing historic buildings, scheduling ancient monuments, registering historic parks and gardens, advising central and local government, and promoting the public's enjoyment of, and advancing their knowledge of, ancient monuments and historic buildings.^[3]

The body was created by the National Heritage Act 1983, and operated from April 1984 to April 2015 under the name of English Heritage.^[4] In 2015, following the changes to English Heritage's structure that moved the protection of the National Heritage Collection into the voluntary sector in the English Heritage Trust, the body that remained was rebranded as Historic England.^[5]

The body also inherited the Historic England Archive from the former English Heritage, and projects linked to the archive such as Britain from Above, which saw the archive work with the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland to digitise, catalogue and put online 96,000 of the oldest Aerofilms images. The archive also houses various national collections, including the results of older projects, such as the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England and Images of England (providing online access to images of listed buildings in England as of 2002).