There is a light that never goes out.

Every light on this map is a home that used to be something else: a chapel, a post office, a village school, a forge, a police station. Each switches on in the year it first changed hands in Land Registry records, and once lit, it stays lit. Press play, or tap a council.

Source: HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, January 1995 to August 2026. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Counted: homes whose name starts "Old" or "Former" followed by a lost use, each building once, in the year of its first recorded sale (not the year it was converted). Shading is per 10,000 home sales in the council. England and Wales only. City homes rarely carry names, so urban areas read darker than their history deserves. Council outlines: ONS open boundary data.