Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
This town in South Ayrshire, Scotland has a population of 4,333. Band D council tax is £1,695.
Maybole’s strongest subject is cost of living — the median home sold for £92,200, 2.1 years of area income. Fewer journeys need a car: nearly a fifth of commuters walk, cycle or take public transport. Health is a weak point: life expectancy 75.7 for men, 79.4 for women. Hazard risk is lower than in most UK towns (A).
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · commuting, Census 2022 · life expectancy, ONS · flood risk, SEPA. Maybole has no Safety Grade, because Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, and so no overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
The 3 things Maybole 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 Maybole is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Maybole has no Safety Grade, because Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, and so no overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 46 buildings inside Maybole’s locality, 1 of them in the top category, and 2 scheduled monuments.
The archive holds 1 old photo or postcard going back to 1805.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Maybole.
Maybole is the cheapest of the 6 towns in South Ayrshire: its median sale is £92,200. 11% rent privately, about level with South Ayrshire’s towns (11%) and below Scotland’s towns (13%). 262 sales in the town’s data zones from 2023 to 2025 make up the median of £92,200.
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.
Maybole’s two primaries and one secondary have 743 pupils between them. Two of its 3 schools are below, each with the reason it’s listed.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Culzean Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 271 | – |
| Carrick AcademyLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 428 | B− |
At the census, 74% of people in Maybole called their health good or very good, lower than both South Ayrshire’s towns (76%) and Scotland’s towns (78%). Its share in bad or very bad health, 8.7%, is the second highest of the 6 towns in South Ayrshire. 28% of residents in Maybole live with a disability.
| Census 2022 | Maybole | South Ayrshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 74% | 76% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 8.7% | 7.7% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 28% | 27% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · 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.
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 24% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
The car took four in five commuters, above both South Ayrshire’s towns (78%) and Scotland’s towns (70%). 17% of commuters who live in Maybole also work there. For every resident in work, Maybole has 0.4 jobs.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Historic Environment Scotland’s list names 46 listed buildings in Maybole: 1 Category A, 18 Category B. Its listed buildings include High Street, Maybole Castle, Garden Walls and Gatepiers, Category A. Conservation areas cover 7% of the town’s land, below South Ayrshire’s towns (8%) but above Scotland’s towns (1%).
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
People 65 and over make up nearly a quarter of the town, between South Ayrshire’s towns (27%) and Scotland’s towns (19%). Residents of Maybole have a median age of 46.7. The share aged 15 to 24 is 11%.
51% women, 49% men
About an even split. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Maybole | South Ayrshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 15% | 14% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 11% | 9.7% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 23% | 20% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 29% | 29% | 27% |
| 65+ | 24% | 27% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 23% | 18% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 10% | 8% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 19% | 31% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · South Ayrshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Maybole. Best known first.
CastleMaybole Castlein town
Abbey or priory · Historic Environment ScotlandCrossraguel Abbey1.9 km outside town, to the southwestCastleCastleBaltersan Castle1.1 km outside town, to the southwestAttractionAttractionElectric Brae4.7 km outside town, to the northwestPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
46 listed buildings in Maybole, 1 of them in the top category.
High Street, Maybole Castle, Garden Walls and Gatepiers: Photo: Billy McCrorie · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Geograph · Maybole Collegiate Church: Photo: Otter · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 19 Greenside and 37 Culzean Road, Maybole, Ayrshire: Photo: Nigel Thompson · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Geograph · Cassillis Road Old Parish Church: Photo: Leslie Barrie · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Geograph
18 notable people were born in Maybole.
John Piper: Augustus Earle, Public domain · R Guy Ramsay: Campbell Anderson, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Sir William Montgomery-Cuninghame, 9th Baronet: Maull & Fox (no individual credited), Public domain · Thomas Ramsay: press announcement from 1914, with author unknown, CC BY-SA 2.5
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maybole | 4,333 | — | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Ayr | 46,209 | 7.5 | — | A+ | — | D |
| Prestwick | 14,550 | 10 | — | A+ | — | C− |
| Girvan | 6,317 | 10 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Drongan | 3,063 | 10 | — | 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 £92,200, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
That is 4.4 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. Its Category A building is High Street, Maybole Castle, Garden Walls and Gatepiers. It also has 2 scheduled monuments.
Surface water isn’t included. Check a specific address on GOV.UK’s flood risk service.
Town in South Ayrshire, Scotland
Maybole is a locality of 4,333 people, in the South 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.