We undertake a detailed analysis of the symmetry structures of the plane symmetric and the locally rotationally symmetric (LRS) Bianchi type I spacetimes in the [Formula: see text] gravity. In particular, we construct all the variational symmetries associated with its Lagrangian and, in some cases, construct the associated conservation laws using Noether’s theorem. Giving a comparison between isometries and variational symmetries, we give symmetry structures of some well-known spacetimes.