Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
This town in Gloucestershire, South West has a population of 8,778.
Cheap to live in, with trade-offs. The weak point is jobs & income: the mean household earns £43,140 a year. With a C overall, Cinderford is better than just over a third of UK towns and ranks #39 of 48 in Gloucestershire. Homes are affordable (A−): a typical home costs £195,000 and rent runs £828 a month. Elsewhere it is close to typical: B for schools, B for walkability and C+ for hazard risk.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · income, ONS · claimants, DWP · commuting, Census 2021 · flood risk, Environment Agency.
Gloucestershire Police published 29 of the 36 months; rates are per year over the months published.
The 3 things Cinderford 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 Cinderford is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic England lists 11 buildings inside Cinderford’s built-up area.
32% of its homes were built before 1919, against 15% in the typical UK town.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Cinderford.
People aged 15 to 24 make up a tenth of the town. Just over a fifth of residents are 65 or over, higher than both Gloucestershire’s towns (20%) and England’s towns (18%). Typical age in Cinderford: 44, the median.
50% women, 50% men
About an even split. Across England, 51% of residents are women.
| Cinderford | Gloucestershire | England | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 17% | 17% | 18% |
| 15–24 | 9.7% | 11% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 25% | 26% | 27% |
| 45–64 | 27% | 26% | 25% |
| 65+ | 22% | 20% | 18% |
| No qualifications | 25% | 15% | 18% |
| Apprenticeship | 7% | 5.8% | 5.3% |
| A levels or similar | 18% | 18% | 17% |
| Degree level | 19% | 34% | 34% |
ONS Census 2021 · Gloucestershire and England: all residents of their built-up areas · OGL
Attainment 8 at the 2 secondary schools within 3 km averages 41.1, and 32% of pupils get grade 5 or above in English and maths. Of its 4 schools, three are shown below, each with the reason. 74% of pupils at the town’s 2 primary schools met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths (three-year average).
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Forest View Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 365 | A− |
| SGS Forest High SchoolLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 255 | D− |
| Steam Mills Primary SchoolTop results in townPrimary | Primary | 128 | A |
Cinderford logged 206 reported offences in a year (to August 2026), plus 53 complaints of anti-social conduct. Burglary and damage came to 11.6 per 1,000 residents a year, above both Gloucestershire’s towns (8.1) and England’s towns (9.4). Among the 1,308 UK towns of 2,500 to 10,000 people, Cinderford has more crime per resident than 88% of them. Violence and sexual offences were 55% of the crimes.
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.
Cinderford is the cheapest of the 48 towns in Gloucestershire: its median sale is £195,000. Social housing holds 18% of households, above Gloucestershire’s towns (13%) and close to England’s towns (18%). Home ownership stands at 63% of households.
| By type | Median | Sales |
|---|---|---|
| Detached | £270,000 | 75 |
| Semi-detached | £205,500 | 90 |
| Terraced | £175,000 | 88 |
| Flat or maisonette | £116,250 | 14 |
HM Land Registry Price Paid · ONS private rents · MHCLG / Welsh Government council tax · ONS Census 2021 tenure · OGL
Of the 90 towns in Gloucestershire, Cinderford has the largest share in bad or very bad health: 6.8%. Life expectancy here is 82.6 for women and 78.7 for men (2019–23). The nearest A&E to Cinderford is Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, 11.9 miles away.
| Census 2021 | Cinderford | Gloucestershire | England |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 77% | 83% | 82% |
| Bad or very bad health | 6.8% | 4.5% | 5.2% |
| Disabled (Equality Act) | 21% | 17% | 17% |
ONS Census 2021, general health and disability · OHID Fingertips, life expectancy 2019–23 · 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 Census was taken on 21 March 2021, in lockdown, so 19% of workers were mainly at home; shares here are of those who travelled.
Cinderford counts 0.9 jobs per working resident. About 24% of its commuters stay in Cinderford for work. Working mainly from home: nearly a fifth of workers, below Gloucestershire’s towns (32%) and England’s towns (31%) alike, and on top of that at the census, 15% of commuters got to work without a car.
ONS Census 2021, method of travel and distance to work · ONS small-area income · DWP claimant count · OGL
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Grade II covers all 11 listed buildings that Historic England records here. Cinderford has 13 listed buildings for every 10,000 residents, below Gloucestershire’s towns (105) and England’s towns (39) alike.
Historic England list, October 2026 · Valuation Office Agency, homes by build period · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Cinderford. Best known first.
Heritage railwayLea Bailey Light Railway3.3 km outside town, to the north
MuseumDean Heritage Museum2.3 km outside town, to the southAttractionAttractionGo Ape3.5 km outside town, to the southwestAttractionAttractionLittledean Jail800 m outside town, to the eastPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
11 listed buildings in Cinderford.
Baptist Church: Photo: Pauline Eccles · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Road Marker Against Front Wall of 1 Victoria Street: Photo: Mr Red · CC BY-SA 2.0
6 notable people were born in Cinderford.
John McAfee: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0
The nearest built-up areas, from ONS’s 2022 boundaries. See them on the map →
| Town | People | Miles | Overall | Cost | Safety | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cinderford | 8,778 | — | C | A− | C− | C− |
| Ruspidge | 2,431 | 1 | — | A− | B− | C− |
| Drybrook | 2,572 | 2.2 | C | B | C+ | C+ |
| Newnham | 1,054 | 2.5 | — | B− | B+ | C+ |
| Mitcheldean | 2,163 | 3 | — | B+ | C+ | C |
| Ruardean | 1,195 | 3.2 | — | A− | B+ | C+ |
| Welsh Bicknor | 1,988 | 3.7 | — | B | B+ | B− |
| Broadwell and Coalway | 3,304 | 4.5 | C+ | B | B− | C |
Ruspidge, Newnham, Mitcheldean, Ruardean and Welsh Bicknor have fewer than 2,500 residents, so they get subject grades but no overall grade. People: Census 2021. Miles: centre to centre.
Burglary was rare, with 6 reports in the year.
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £195,000, against £277,000 in the typical UK town. By type: flats £116,250, terraced houses £175,000, semi-detached houses £205,500 and detached houses £270,000.
Town in Gloucestershire, England
Cinderford is a built-up area of 8,778 people, in the Forest of Dean 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.
