Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
The town has 7,002 residents and lies in South Lanarkshire, Scotland.
Homes are affordable: homes sell for a median £239,000, about 5.2 times local household income. Pupils here do better than most: school leavers’ results beat 66% of Scottish towns. Elsewhere it is close to typical: C+ for health, B− for walkability and C+ for hazard risk. A Band D home pays £1,468 in council tax.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · life expectancy, ONS · commuting, Census 2022 · flood risk, SEPA. Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Bothwell has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Every other subject still has a grade below.
The 3 things Bothwell 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 Bothwell is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Bothwell has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Every other subject still has a grade below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 37 buildings inside Bothwell’s locality, 3 of them in the top category, and 1 scheduled monument.
Explore the history →Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Bothwell. Best known first.
Castle · Historic Environment ScotlandBothwell Castlein town
CathedralMotherwell Cathedral4.5 km outside town, to the east
Museum · National Trust for ScotlandDavid Livingstone Museum100 m outside town, to the southwest
Theme parkM&D's Theme Park1.2 km outside town, to the east
Castle · Historic Environment ScotlandCadzow Castle (ruin)4.6 km outside town, to the southeast
MuseumLow Parks Museum2.3 km outside town, to the southeastPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Bothwell.
10% live in social housing, lower than both South Lanarkshire’s towns (20%) and Scotland’s towns (24%). Bothwell is the second most expensive of the 16 towns in South Lanarkshire, at £239,000. Households that own their home make up 79%.
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.
One of its 2 schools is below, with the reason it’s listed. Between them, two primaries teach 587 pupils in Bothwell.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bothwell Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 335 | – |
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Bothwell’s listed buildings include Bothwell, Bothwell Parish Church, Joanna Baillie Monument, Category A. For its size, Bothwell has 53 listed buildings per 10,000 residents, higher than both South Lanarkshire’s towns (10) and Scotland’s towns (22). Of the town’s 37 listed buildings on Historic Environment Scotland’s list, Category A counts 3 and Category B 15.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
A disability affects a fifth of people in Bothwell. Just over four fifths of the town’s residents described their health as good or very good at the census, higher than both South Lanarkshire’s towns (77%) and Scotland’s towns (78%).
| Census 2022 | Bothwell | South Lanarkshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 82% | 77% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 5.4% | 7.9% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 20% | 25% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · Young towns look healthier on these answers, which aren’t adjusted for age; the Health Grade uses measures that are, such as life expectancy and early deaths.
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 36% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
36% of workers worked mainly from home, above both South Lanarkshire’s towns (31%) and Scotland’s towns (31%). The car carried 84% of commuters at the census. Work in town: 4% of resident commuters. For 30% of commuters, work was under 5 km away.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
At 48, the median resident of Bothwell sits in the middle of the age range. People aged 15 to 24 make up nearly a tenth of the town, below both South Lanarkshire’s towns (10%) and Scotland’s towns (12%). Degrees are held by 42% of adults.
52% women, 48% men
About 90 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.
| Bothwell | South Lanarkshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 16% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 9% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 22% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 29% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 25% | 20% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 14% | 18% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 5.8% | 8.4% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 42% | 28% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · South Lanarkshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
37 listed buildings in Bothwell, 3 of them in the top category.
BOTHWELL CASTLE: Photo: Otter · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Bothwell, Bothwell Parish Church, Joanna Baillie Monument: Photo: Jim Smillie · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Geograph
16 notable people were born in Bothwell.
Joanna Baillie: Mary Ann Knight, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bothwell | 7,002 | — | — | A | — | C+ |
| Uddingston | 6,181 | 1.1 | — | A+ | — | C− |
| Blantyre | 16,534 | 1.3 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Viewpark | 15,832 | 1.6 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Bellshill | 19,488 | 2.2 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Hamilton | 55,171 | 2.6 | — | A+ | — | D |
| Cambuslang | 33,250 | 3.3 | — | A | — | D |
| Motherwell | 33,021 | 3.4 | — | 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.
That is 2.2 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. Its Category A buildings include Bothwell, Bothwell Parish Church, Joanna Baillie Monument. It also has 1 scheduled monument.
Band D council tax in Bothwell is £1,468 for 2026–27, less than in 99% of UK towns (council, county, police and fire). Your own bill depends on your home’s band; check it on GOV.UK.
GCSE results beat 66% of towns in England (Department for Education, Attainment 8). Bothwell has 2 state schools; places are handled by the local council.
Town in South Lanarkshire, Scotland
Bothwell is a locality of 7,002 people, in the South Lanarkshire 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.