At first glance it seems strange that a skatepark in Hornchurch should have been given a Grade II listing from English Heritage. It seems strange at second glance, too. Especially when you learn that the recipient of the award, the Rom in Essex, has been described by Simon Inglis, the sports historian who edits English Heritage’s Played in Britain book series, as “ a very sensual series of undulations”. Is that a description of a skatepark or a character in a 1970s erotic thriller?

But the more I think about this listing, the more it makes sense. No one bats an eyelid when stadiums or swimming pools are listed, so why not celebrate the enduring cultures of skating and BMX riding? What’s more, I can understand why Inglis went into such raptures when describing the park. I don’t dare hazard my own description of its curves and declivities – but it is strangely beautiful. Best of all, it’s a fine marriage of form and function. The park has been in constant and productive use since it was built in the late 1970s, with generations of skaters and bikers mastering their craft and bruising their knees on its slopes and half-pipes. It deserves celebration.

The only issue is that listing a skatepark opens the door to so much else. If you’re going to slap a preservation order on a series of undulations you might as well get to work on some of the other weird and wonderful structures scattered around the UK. Here’s a preliminary list I’m sure barely scratches the (sensual) surface:

The Camberwell Submarine

Rising up from a south London street, with a long low slung body and two fat chimneys, it’s easy to see why this brutal concrete masterpiece was given its nautical moniker. Some people even used to think it was a cold war defence structure, but they were no more confused than those who assumed it was a ventilation shaft for the Underground – even though the nearest tube line is over a mile away. The truth is possibly even more exciting: it housed a series of massive steaming boilers that heated two nearby council estates.

The Headington Shark

Everyone who has caught the bus from London to Oxford will have seen this giant shark diving into the roof of a suburban house in Headington. It appeared on 2 August 1986, erected by Bill Heine as a commentary on the impotence he felt in relation to nuclear proliferation. Oxford city council immediately started trying to get rid of it, first by claiming it was unsafe, then by digging out obscure bits of planning law. Luckily, the doughty Heine fought them off. He appealed to the secretary of state for the environment, whose inspector admirably declared that planning laws should make room for the “dynamic, the unexpected, the downright quirky”.

Kevin Duffy’s Tudor Village

Britain has a noble tradition of outsider artists constructing strange stuff on their property. Plenty, like the glorious Penshaw Monument in County Durham have already been listed, but there are many more modern candidates. Not long ago, for instance, a man in Melrose built himself a massive teapot. In the 1990s, a stained-glass enthusiast made a giant complex of hobbit homes in his field in Wiltshire – apparently for his sheep to live in. One of the best though has to be Kevin Duffy’s Tudor Village , a more than 30-year continuing project in a garden centre near Wigan full of black-and-white buildings, inhabited only by a series of mannequins carefully positioned to alarm and delight visitors.

The Falkirk Wheel

You could probably argue that a structure built in 2002 is too recent to be listed – but you can’t possibly argue that The Falkirk Wheel is anything other than massively cool. It’s a miracle of engineering, inspired by the shape of a Celtic double-headed axe, which lifts boats 24 feet (7.3 metres) in the air and shifts them from one canal into another. And just look at its gears!

RAF Trimingham

RAF Trimingham has a rich and fascinating history as a bulkwark of Britain’s second world war and cold car radar defence systems – and a more amusing recent legacy of disrupting drivers on Norfolk coastal roads by knocking their speedometers out of whack, switching off their engines and messing with their lights. Its giant white radome also looks gloriously odd against the Norfolk landscape.

The Kelpies

Giant horse heads looming over one of the sea entrances to Scotland. What more do you want?