Dragon’s teeth and elf garden among 2025 additions to English heritage list
If Nazi tanks had ever attempted to invade Guildford, they surely would have been thwarted by concrete pyramid-shaped obstacles known as “dragon’s teeth”.Eight decades after the defences were installed in Surrey woodland, their history is being remembered by Historic England (HE), which has included them on its list of remarkable historic places granted protection in 2025.The heritage body publishes a roundup of unusual listings to draw attention to the diversity of places that join the national heritage list for England each year.As well as the anti-tank defences, this year’s list of 19 places includes a revolutionary 1960s concrete university block, a model boat club boathouse built in 1933 by men who were long-term unemployed, and a magical suburban “elf garden”.Claudia Kenyatta and Emma Squire, the co-CEOs of HE, said the listings provided a connection to the people and events that shaped communities.
“From ancient burial sites to shipwrecks and wartime defences to postmodernist buildings, street furniture and arts and craft gardens, these sites reveal the fascinating history that surrounds us all,” they said.The “dragon’s teeth” in Thorneycroft Wood, Surrey, were built in 1941-42 by the Royal Engineers and were manned by the Home Guard.They have been categorised as a scheduled monument.HE said they were “among the best-preserved examples of the measures taken to defend Britain against invasion during the second world war”.The defences are important because they survive but also because of the story they tell – of a time when Britain was braced for what in the eyes of many was certain German invasion after the fall of France in 1940.
They were part of a strategy that included a network of coastal defences and inland strongholds called “nodal points”, essentially creating a fortress town or “anti-tank island” that could resist attack for seven days.Guildford, with its important road and rail links, was designated as a category A nodal point.The 1960s concrete building on the list is the Renold building on the Umist campus in Manchester.Designed by WA Gibbon, it was the first purpose-built lecture theatre block in an English higher education institution, and for that reason is regarded as a gamechanger.It also, for many, looks incredible.
Unless you hate it.Gibbon was influenced by modernists such as Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer and the block, with its zigzag east wall and transparent stair tower, is seen as an exciting “taste of Brasília” in Manchester.After being turned down for listing in 2005, this year the building has been listed at Grade II.In total, 199 historic buildings and sites in England were added to the national list in 2025.Other unusual listings include:Bournville radio sailing and model boat club boathouse and concrete boating pond in Birmingham.
It was built in 1933 after the Cadbury chocolate family hired 64 men who were long-term unemployed and not eligible for state benefit.The Grade II listing recognises its rarity, the craftsmanship and the story of philanthropy.Tudor Croft garden in Guisborough, Redcar and Cleveland.It was created from 1934 for the brick industrialist Ronald Crossley and one of its highlights is a section filled with terracotta gnomes, pixies and elves.A submarine telephone cable hauler and gantry at Enderby’s wharf in Greenwich, now listed as a scheduled monument.
The dockside equipment is linked to the first successful transatlantic telephone cable and can be seen as “a birthplace of global communications”.A shipwreck off the Dorset coast described as exceptionally rare and known as the Pin Wreck because of the hundreds of copper bolts visible on the seabed.The bolts once held together the hull of the vessel, a 19th-century steam mooring lighter.It was recommended for protection after archaeological surveys by Bournemouth University.St Peter’s church in Littlebury Green, Essex, which is a once common but now increasingly rare type of prefabricated church.
Known as a tin tabernacle, it was cheaply built in 1885 using wood, corrugated iron “and faith” as a place of worship for people who lived a long way from the main parish church.This article was amended on 11 December 2025.An earlier version placed Guisborough in Teesside.It is in fact within the Redcar and Cleveland unitary authority.
Green biotech firms to open factories at Grangemouth; Oracle shares tumble 15% after results disappoint – as it happened
Two green biotechnology firms have announced they will build new factories at Scotland’s Grangemouth site which will employ up to 460 people, in the first phase of projects to replace hundreds of jobs lost when the PetroIneos refinery closed down.The projects by MiAlgae, a start-up based in Edinburgh which uses whisky waste to make fish-free Omega 3 oils, and Celtic Renewables, which uses whisky and agricultural byproducts to make chemicals, have won £10m in funding from the Scottish and UK governments to build new plants at Grangemouth.MiAlgae’s founder and chief executive Douglas Martin said their Omega 3 plant would start production in the second quarter of 2026, employing 75 people. It uses whisky wash, a byproduct, of whisky production to produce plant-based Omega 3 for pet food and fish farm feed.Martin said their modular plant, which has been given £3m by the UK and Scottish governments, can be rapidly expanded to eventually create up to 310 jobs
US is the best place for drug companies to invest, says boss of London-based GSK
The chief executive of GSK has declared that the US is the best place for pharmaceutical companies to invest.Emma Walmsley said the US led the world in launches of drugs and vaccines and, alongside China, was the best market for business development.She is the latest boss of a leading UK drugmaker to talk up business opportunities on the other side of the Atlantic, after AstraZeneca’s Pascal Soriot hailed the “vital importance of the US”.The UK government, which has been trying to strengthen the pharmaceutical sector, confirmed on Wednesday that the proportion of revenues from new medicine sales that companies need to pay back to the NHS would fall next year – from 22.5% to under 15%
Disney to invest $1bn in OpenAI, allowing characters in Sora video tool
Walt Disney has announced a $1bn equity investment in OpenAI, enabling the AI startup’s Sora video generation tool to use its characters.Users of Sora will be able to generate short, user-prompted social videos that draw on more than 200 Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars characters as part of a three-year licensing agreement between OpenAI and the entertainment giant.The agreement – a landmark deal amid intense anxiety in Hollywood over the impact of artificial intelligence on the future of entertainment – will not cover talent likenesses or voices.Bob Iger, Disney’s CEO, hailed a deal which paired his firm’s “iconic stories and characters” with OpenAI’s AI technology. It will place “imagination and creativity directly into the hands of Disney fans in ways we’ve never seen before”, he claimed
EU watchdogs raid Temu’s Dublin HQ in foreign subsidy investigation
Temu’s European headquarters in Dublin have been raided by EU regulators investigating a potential breach of foreign subsidy regulations.The Chinese online retailer, which is already in the European Commission’s spotlight over alleged failures to prevent illegal content being sold on its app and website, was raided last week without warning or any subsequent publicity.“We can confirm that the commission has carried out an unannounced inspection at the premises of a company active in the e-commerce sector in the EU, under the foreign subsidies regulation,” a commission spokesperson said on Thursday.Temu was approached for comment.Its headquarters are on St Stephen’s Green, one of Dublin’s most prestigious addresses
No guarantee tobacco tax cut would lure Australian smokers from illegal trade and raise more revenue, report says
Slashing the tobacco excise might not be enough to lure smokers back to legal cigarettes and could even widen the multibillion-dollar hole blown in the budget by the booming illicit trade, new research shows.The analysis from the e61 Institute comes as Jim Chalmers revealed next week’s midyear fiscal update will reveal an extra $12.7bn in unanticipated spending, including an additional $6.3bn in higher than expected disaster relief payments.The treasurer said “the biggest job … has been making room for unavoidable pressures and payments without a substantial deterioration in the bottom line”
Fed cuts interest rates by a quarter point amid apparent split over US economy
The US Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday that it was cutting interest rates by a quarter point for the third time this year, as the embattled central bank appeared split over how best to manage the US economy.The Fed chair, Jerome Powell, has emphasized unity within the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the board of Fed leaders that sets interest rates. But the nine-to-three vote to lower rates to a range of 3.5% to 3.75% was divisive among the committee that tends to vote in unanimity
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