Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
With 3,360 residents, it is a town in Essex, East of England.
Schools are its weak spot: primary results beat a quarter of towns in England. Jobs and pay trail most towns (C+): households earn a mean £59,387 a year, and 3.1% of 16 to 64s claim unemployment benefits. The median home sold for £315,000, 5.3 times what households in the Braintree council area earn in a year. Walking, cycling and public transport work well here: on the way to work, 15% walk, cycle or take a bus or train. Put together, the subjects come to a C+ overall, ranking #53 of 81 in Essex. On that grade it does better than two fifths of UK towns. Its remaining grades are unremarkable: C+ for safety, B− for health and C+ for hazard risk.
Figures: commuting, Census 2021 · income and life expectancy, ONS · claimants, DWP · prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · crime, police.uk, averaged Sep 2023 to Aug 2026 · flood risk, Environment Agency.
The 3 things Earls Colne does most differently from other towns.
Each subject compared with the 2,160 UK towns with an overall grade (schools within England), ordered by how far Earls Colne is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic England lists 74 buildings inside Earls Colne’s built-up area, 1 of them Grade I.
21% of its homes were built before 1919, against 15% in the typical UK town.
The archive holds 2 old photos and postcards going back to 1904.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Earls Colne.
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
21% of its homes were built before 1919, above Essex’s towns (11%) and England’s towns (16%) alike. Earls Colne’s listed buildings include the Parish Church of St Andrew, Grade I. It counts 74 listed buildings on the national list (Historic England): 1 Grade I.
Historic England list, October 2026 · Valuation Office Agency, homes by build period · OGL
Degrees are held by just over a quarter of adults, close to Essex’s towns (27%) and below England’s towns (34%). Those aged 15 to 24 account for one in ten residents. Line up the people of Earls Colne by age and the one in the middle is 44.6.
52% women, 48% men
About 91 men for every 100 women. Across England, 51% of residents are women. Women live longer than men, so towns with many older residents have more women.
| Earls Colne | Essex | England | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 18% | 18% | 18% |
| 15–24 | 9.8% | 11% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 22% | 26% | 27% |
| 45–64 | 27% | 26% | 25% |
| 65+ | 23% | 20% | 18% |
| No qualifications | 19% | 19% | 18% |
| Apprenticeship | 6.8% | 5.5% | 5.3% |
| A levels or similar | 18% | 17% | 17% |
| Degree level | 26% | 27% | 34% |
ONS Census 2021 · Essex and England: all residents of their built-up areas · OGL
The Census was taken on 21 March 2021, in lockdown, so 28% of workers were mainly at home; shares here are of those who travelled.
Just over four in five commuters drove, higher than both Essex’s towns (74%) and England’s towns (70%). Jobs per working resident: 0.5. Work in town: 11% of resident commuters.
ONS Census 2021, method of travel and distance to work · ONS small-area income · DWP claimant count · OGL
Of all the crimes, 64% were violence and sexual offences. Homes saw 7 burglaries and acts of damage per 1,000 residents a year, below both Essex’s towns (10.6) and England’s towns (9.4). Reported offences in Earls Colne came to 121 over twelve months to August 2026; nuisance and anti-social incidents added 9.
Not gradedAnti-social behaviour, shoplifting and other theft are shown but left out of the Safety Grade, which counts violence and crimes against homes and vehicles per resident.
data.police.uk street-level crime · points inside the ONS built-up-area boundary · OGL · The police category of violence and sexual offences includes harassment and stalking.
Private renters make up 15% of households, below Essex’s towns (17%) and England’s towns (21%) alike. 64% of households own their home. Half of the 174 standard sales inside Earls Colne’s built-up area from September 2023 to August 2026 went for more than £315,000.
| By type | Median | Sales |
|---|---|---|
| Detached | £475,000 | 59 |
| Semi-detached | £308,750 | 63 |
| Terraced | £258,000 | 41 |
| Flat or maisonette | £230,000 | 11 |
HM Land Registry Price Paid · ONS private rents · MHCLG / Welsh Government council tax · ONS Census 2021 tenure · OGL
One GP practice serves the town; just over three quarters of patients rate theirs good in the GP Patient Survey. At the census, nearly a fifth of people here had a disability, higher than both Essex’s towns (17%) and England’s towns (17%). The nearest A&E to Earls Colne is Colchester General Hospital, 8.8 miles away. Women here live to 82.8 on average and men to 79.1 (2019–23).
| Census 2021 | Earls Colne | Essex | England |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 81% | 83% | 82% |
| Bad or very bad health | 5.7% | 4.8% | 5.2% |
| Disabled (Equality Act) | 19% | 17% | 17% |
ONS Census 2021, general health and disability · OHID Fingertips, life expectancy 2019–23 · OGL · Census health answers are raw, so younger towns score better on them; for the Health Grade we use age-adjusted figures like life expectancy and early deaths.
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Earls Colne. Best known first.
GardenSergeants Orchard4.5 km outside town, to the eastMuseumMuseumInformation Kioskin townMuseumMuseumEast Anglian Railway Museum3 km outside town, to the eastAttractionAttraction · National TrustPaycocke's House and Garden3.9 km outside town, to the southHistoric siteHistoric site · National TrustCoggeshall Grange Barn4.1 km outside town, to the southPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
74 listed buildings in Earls Colne, 1 of them Grade I.
Parish Church of St Andrew: Photo: Robin Webster · CC BY-SA 2.0 · The Drum Public House: Photo: Geographer · CC BY-SA 2.0 · The Old Forge: Photo: Michael Garlick · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Geograph · 77, High Street: Photo: Robin Webster · CC BY-SA 2.0
The nearest built-up areas, from ONS’s 2022 boundaries. See them on the map →
| Town | People | Miles | Overall | Cost | Safety | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Earls Colne | 3,360 | — | C+ | B | C+ | B− |
| Halstead | 13,902 | 2.7 | C+ | B | C+ | C+ |
| Coggeshall | 3,767 | 3.7 | B | C+ | B− | B+ |
| Gosfield | 1,453 | 4.3 | — | C− | A+ | B |
| Marks Tey | 1,817 | 4.5 | — | B+ | B+ | A− |
| Bures | 1,183 | 4.7 | — | B− | B− | B+ |
| Eight Ash Green | 1,769 | 5.4 | — | B− | C+ | A |
| Copford | 1,794 | 5.5 | — | C+ | B | A− |
Gosfield, Marks Tey, Bures, Eight Ash Green and Copford have fewer than 2,500 residents, so they get subject grades but no overall grade. People: Census 2021. Miles: centre to centre.
That is 9 times the typical UK town for its size. Its Grade I building is Parish Church of St Andrew.
Primary results trail 75% of towns in England (Department for Education, Key Stage 2). Places are handled by Essex council.
About the middle for its size: 57% of the 1,308 UK towns of 2,500 to 10,000 people report less crime per resident. Against all UK towns, it grades C+. Burglary was rare, with 3 reports in the year.
Town in Essex, England
Earls Colne is a built-up area of 3,360 people, in the Braintree council area. TownRatings uses ONS’s 2022 built-up areas as towns: the physical town, as people mean the word, rather than a council district, so its figures cover the town itself.
Built from ONS geography and Census 2021
Sources: ONS Census 2021, output areas summed to the ONS 2022 built-up area · HM Land Registry Price Paid (standard sales, September 2023 to August 2026) · ONS Price Index of Private Rents (August 2026, by council) · MHCLG and Welsh Government council tax, Band D 2026–27 (with parish precepts in England) · data.police.uk street-level crime, 36 months to August 2026, points inside the built-up-area boundary · ONS small-area life expectancy and healthy life expectancy, 2019 to 2023 (England and Wales), OHID Fingertips small-area indicators (England) and Census 2021 health, adjusted for age · ONS small-area income estimates (financial year ending 2023) · DWP claimant count via Nomis (January to August 2026) · Historic England, National Heritage List for England (listed buildings, scheduled monuments, registered parks and gardens, battlefields, World Heritage Sites), October 2026, inside the ONS 2022 built-up-area boundary · Valuation Office Agency, Council Tax: stock of properties by build period (31 March 2025) · 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.