A pub, a lighthouse, a former poison gas factory and a 1960s concrete church are among the sites that have been added to the national register of historic sites that are at risk.

The Historic England register covers houses, places of worship, shipwrecks, parks and gardens, archaeological sites and battlefields.

One of the most unusual sites at risk is the national filling factory, hidden in shrubbery close to the M40 motorway near Banbury in Oxfordshire. It was originally built to fill shells with high explosives, and by 1918 converted to produce poison gas shells.

At its height the factory employed 1,500 people, a third of them women, known in a grim joke as “canaries” because the chemicals stained their skin yellow. The remains of the building are nationally important, but much of the surviving concrete and brick is in danger of collapse.

The Roman Catholic church of St Thomas More in Birmingham was only built in 1968, designed entirely in concrete by the architect Richard Gilbert Scott, but has come on to the register because the badly leaking roof is threatening the interior, including spectacular stained glass windows by John Chrestien.

A London landmark fondly remembered by music lovers, the White Lion pub in Wandsworth, now empty and closed up after a previous owner went bankrupt, was built in 1887 but acquired raucous fame as a live music venue in the 70s and 80s, when punk bands like X-Ray Spex played there.

One of the most ornate tombs in Kensal Green cemetery in west London – built in 1850 for Joseph Hudson, who fought in the Napoleonic wars and later became a wealthy tobacconist based in Oxford Street – is also at risk from plants splitting the stonework apart.

There is good news for some sites which have found saviours, including some which have sat decaying on the register for many years.

The scenic railway at Dreamland funfair in Margate, built in 1919 and Grade II* listed in recognition of its unique status as the oldest surviving rollercoaster in Britain, reopened to thrill seekers last week. Thousands of hours of volunteer work went into the restoration of the ride which was badly damaged by fire in 2008, and is now seen as a key part in the revival of the seaside resort.

Other unusual revivals include the the former brown bear pit and kiosk at Dudley zoo, Grade II* listed as part of a remarkable group of buildings and structures at the zoo designed in the 1930s by the Tecton group of modernist architects, led by the Russian Berthold Lubetkin – who also created the famous penguin pool at London zoo.

An £11m repair programme is almost complete on the gigantic airship sheds at Cardington in Bedfordshire, including Shed 1, the only pre-1918 example in Europe still on its original site.

Heritage at Risk 2015 shows that prehistoric barrows – earth mounds often within working farmland – are the most endangered type of heritage site, with 853 threatened, making up 16% of the register.

Residential buildings, from prehistoric hut sites to 20th-century concrete, are the second most common, followed by small settlements such as deserted medieval villages.

A total of 3.9% of buildings that are Grade I and Grade II* listed are on the register, varying from 2.1% in the south-east to 6.9% in the east Midlands and north-east. The types most at risk vary across regions – commercial sites including shops and warehouses are most at risk in the industrial north-west, and coastal defence sites including Napoleonic era forts in the south-east.

Duncan Wilson, the chief executive of Historic England, said the challenge was significant: “The very things that make our regions special, are the things most at risk. If they’re lost, then a sense of that region is lost too.”

Properties are being removed from the register faster than new ones are being added – 84 removed and 81 added since 2014. Since the first register in 1999, 868 sites, or 60% of the total, have been repaired or conservation is under way, but the problems of many remaining on the list for years are intractable.

This year’s register is the first since English Heritage was split up into separate organisations, with English Heritage running sites including Stonehenge, and Historic England responsible for conservation, listings and grants within the Department for Culture Media and Sport.