22 February 2026
Visit History brings together historic sites from several different sources into one app. Here's a breakdown of where the data comes from and who these organisations are.
Historic England is the public body that looks after England's historic environment. It was established in April 2015 when the former English Heritage organisation was split into two separate bodies. Its formal name is the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England, and it is sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Historic England advises the government on England's historic environment - championing historic places and helping people understand, value, and care for them. Crucially for us, it maintains the National Heritage List for England (NHLE).
The NHLE is the official, publicly searchable database of all nationally designated heritage assets in England. It contains over 400,000 entries covering:
This is the largest single dataset in Visit History and forms the backbone of the app.
The NHLE dataset is published by Historic England and made available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 (OGL v3.0). This licence permits anyone to freely use, share, and adapt the data for both commercial and non-commercial purposes, provided the source is acknowledged. You can read the full licence at nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/.
We use this data in accordance with the licence terms, with Historic England acknowledged as the source.
English Heritage is a registered charity that manages and opens to the public over 400 historic properties and sites across England, including iconic places like Stonehenge, Dover Castle, and Hadrian's Wall.
Before 2015, "English Heritage" was the common name for the organisation that handled both heritage regulation and property management. When it was split, Historic England took on the advisory and regulatory role, while English Heritage Trust became a separate charity responsible for managing the National Heritage Collection - the properties in the government's care.
English Heritage has over 1 million members and is increasingly self-funded through memberships, admissions, and donations.
The National Trust is one of the largest conservation charities in Europe. It was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter, and Hardwicke Rawnsley to preserve places of historic interest and natural beauty.
The Trust looks after more than 500 historic houses, castles, ancient monuments, and gardens, along with over 250,000 hectares of land and more than 780 miles of coastline across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. It has approximately 5.5 million members, making it one of the largest membership organisations in the UK.
National Trust properties are held "in perpetuity for the nation" - they are inalienable, meaning they cannot be sold or mortgaged against the Trust's wishes.
Historic Houses (formerly the Historic Houses Association) is the association representing the UK's independently owned historic houses, castles, and gardens. It was founded in 1973 and rebranded to its current name in 2018.
It represents approximately 1,500 member properties across the UK. These are privately owned - many are still lived in by the families that built or have owned them for centuries. Historic Houses advocates on behalf of its members on heritage policy, planning, and conservation, and runs a visitor pass scheme for public access to member properties.
Visit History is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or officially connected to English Heritage, National Trust, or Historic Houses. We use publicly available information about their sites to help our users discover and track visits to historic places across England.
Our use of NHLE data from Historic England is made possible by the Open Government Licence, and we acknowledge Historic England as the source of that data.
We built Visit History because we wanted one place to see everything - regardless of who manages it. We hope it helps you explore more of England's incredible heritage.