Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
The town has 3,809 residents and lies in East Ayrshire, Scotland. Council tax at Band D comes to £1,717.
Mauchline’s strongest is cost of living (A+): homes sell for a median £132,400, about 3.1 times local household income. Schools lag (D): school leavers’ results beat 8% of Scottish towns. Health lags: life expectancy 76.8 for men, 80.6 for women. Natural hazards weigh less here than in most UK towns (A).
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · life expectancy, ONS · flood risk, SEPA. Police Scotland publishes no street-level crime, which leaves Mauchline without a Safety Grade or an overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
The 3 things Mauchline does most differently from other towns.
Each subject compared with the 2,160 UK towns with an overall grade (schools within Scotland), ordered by how far Mauchline is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland publishes no street-level crime, which leaves Mauchline without a Safety Grade or an overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 12 buildings inside Mauchline’s locality, 2 of them in the top category.
The archive holds 3 old photos and postcards going back to 1890.
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Mauchline.
18% live in social housing, below East Ayrshire’s towns (26%) and Scotland’s towns (24%) alike. Renting privately is how nearly one in ten households live. Private rents average £656 a month across the Ayrshires council area.
Registers of Scotland data-zone sale prices · Scottish Government council tax · Scotland’s Census 2022 tenure · OGL · The Scottish median is our estimate from data-zone sales, brought to early-2025 prices.
The town has one school, shown below. 292 pupils attend Mauchline’s one primary school.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mauchline Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 292 | – |
76% of people in Mauchline rate their own health good or very good. At the census, 27% of people here had a disability, near East Ayrshire’s towns (27%) and higher than Scotland’s towns (24%). Poor health, by residents’ own account, affects 7.8% of the town.
| Census 2022 | Mauchline | East Ayrshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 76% | 76% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 7.8% | 8.1% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 27% | 27% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · Read these answers with age in mind: they aren’t adjusted, so younger places do better. The Health Grade uses age-adjusted measures, life expectancy and early deaths among them.
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
At the top of the list, 2 are Category A and 10 Category B. Of Mauchline’s land, 8% lies in conservation areas, above both East Ayrshire’s towns (3%) and Scotland’s towns (1%).
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 25% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
Home was the main workplace for a quarter of workers at the census. The car took 87% of commuters, above East Ayrshire’s towns (82%) and Scotland’s towns (70%) alike. 15% of commuters travelled under 5 km to work. About 6% of its commuters stay in Mauchline for work.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
Nearly a quarter of adults hold a degree, near East Ayrshire’s towns (23%) and lower than Scotland’s towns (32%). People aged 15 to 24 make up nearly a tenth of the town. Ages in Mauchline split evenly at 49.3: half are older, half younger. Children under 15 make up 14% of residents.
52% women, 48% men
About 91 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women. Women live longer than men, so towns with many older residents have more women.
| Mauchline | East Ayrshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 14% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 9.1% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 22% | 24% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 29% | 29% | 27% |
| 65+ | 26% | 21% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 21% | 22% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 9.9% | 8.7% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 10% | 11% |
| Degree level | 24% | 23% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · East Ayrshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Mauchline. Best known first.
CastleMauchline Castlein town
CastleKingencleugh Castle700 m outside town, to the south
CastleRuins of Auchinleck Castle3.1 km outside town, to the south
CastleSorn Castle4.2 km outside town, to the eastMuseumMuseumBurns House Museumin townPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
12 listed buildings in Mauchline, 2 of them in the top category.
Mauchline Castle (Abbot Hunter’s Tower), Mauchline: Photo: Roger Griffith · Public domain · Mauchline Old Parish Church and Graveyard: Photo: WeeHolly · CC BY-SA 4.0
13 notable people were born in Mauchline.
Gavin Hamilton: Otto Theodor Leyde, Public domain · John Murray: P.G. Poulsen, Public domain · Mary Morison: Rosser1954, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Willie Clarke: Taddy & Co. Cigarette Cards, Public domain
The nearest towns and villages, from National Records of Scotland’s 2022 localities. See them on the map →
| Town | People | Miles | Overall | Cost | Safety | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mauchline | 3,809 | — | — | A+ | — | D |
| Auchinleck | 3,682 | 4.4 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Galston | 4,527 | 5.8 | — | A+ | — | C− |
| Cumnock | 8,835 | 6.5 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Drongan | 3,063 | 6.5 | — | A+ | — | D |
| Hurlford and Crookedholm | 4,360 | 6.5 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Newmilns | 2,559 | 6.6 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Darvel | 3,701 | 7.6 | — | A+ | — | D |
No Scottish town has a Safety Grade or an overall grade yet: Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime. People: Census 2022. Miles: centre to centre.
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £132,400, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 29th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
GCSE results trail 92% of towns in England (Department for Education, Attainment 8). One state school is inside the town; places are handled by the local council.
Surface water isn’t included. Check a specific address on GOV.UK’s flood risk service.
Town in East Ayrshire, Scotland
Mauchline is a locality of 3,809 people, in the East Ayrshire council area. TownRatings uses National Records of Scotland’s 2022 localities as Scotland’s towns: the physical town, as people mean the word, rather than a council area, so its figures cover the town itself. Localities split the big settlements into their towns, as ONS’s 2022 boundaries split conurbations in England and Wales.
Built from NRS geography and Census 2022
Sources: Scotland’s Census 2022 (National Records of Scotland), output areas summed to the NRS 2022 locality · Registers of Scotland house price statistics, medians and quartiles of residential sales by 2022 data zone, 2004 to 2025 (the 2023 to 2025 headline brought to early-2025 prices with each council’s medians) · Scottish Government, Council Tax by band 2026-27; Scottish Water charges 2026-27 · Scottish Government, Recorded Crime in Scotland (crimes, offences and clear-up rates by council area, 2016-17 to 2025-26); Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2020v2 crime domain and SIMD crime indicators (2014/15, 2017/18), 2011 data zones with Census 2022 residents · ONS gross disposable household income by council (2022), scaled to household income on England and Wales’s councils, with Scotland’s Census 2022 households · DWP / ONS Claimant Count via Nomis (2022 data zones, January to August 2026), over residents aged 16 to 64 at Scotland’s Census 2022; council series since 2015 · Scottish Government school contact list (31 July 2026) and school summary statistics (pupil census, September 2025); School Information Dashboard leavers’ attainment by school, 2022-23 to 2024-25 (data.gov.scot) · TownRatings grades: our own summary of the data, ranked against UK towns only. All under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.