Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Council tax at Band D comes to £1,468. A town of 4,259 in South Lanarkshire, Scotland.
Homes are affordable: the median home sold for £175,900, 3.8 years of area income. The weak point is health: life expectancy is 73.1 for men and 76.4 for women. Its other grades sit near the middle: B− for schools and C+ for walkability. Natural hazards are less of a worry than in most UK towns: 0.1% of homes at high or medium risk of flooding from rivers or the sea.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · life expectancy, ONS · commuting, Census 2022 · flood risk, SEPA. Lesmahagow has no Safety Grade, because Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, and so no overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
Each subject compared with the 2,160 UK towns with an overall grade (schools within Scotland), ordered by how far Lesmahagow is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Lesmahagow 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 →
The 3 things Lesmahagow does most differently from other towns.
Historic Environment Scotland lists 8 buildings inside Lesmahagow’s locality, 7 of them in the second category.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Lesmahagow.
28% of residents in Lesmahagow live with a disability. Of the 16 towns in South Lanarkshire, Lesmahagow has the second-largest share in bad or very bad health: 9.4%. Self-reported good health: 74% of the town’s residents.
| Census 2022 | Lesmahagow | South Lanarkshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 74% | 77% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 9.4% | 7.9% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 28% | 25% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · The census answers take no account of age, so a young town looks healthier; the Health Grade relies on age-adjusted measures, life expectancy and early deaths among them.
Lesmahagow’s two primaries and one secondary have 973 pupils between them. Two of its 3 schools are below, each with the reason it’s listed.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Milton Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 170 | – |
| Lesmahagow High SchoolLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 666 | C+ |
The social rented sector houses 27% of households. Private renters make up 11% of households, above South Lanarkshire’s towns (10%) but below Scotland’s towns (13%). Owners make up three in five households.
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 heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Lesmahagow counts 8 listed buildings on the national list (Historic Environment Scotland): 7 Category B. Per 10,000 residents, Lesmahagow counts 19 listed buildings, higher than South Lanarkshire’s towns (10) yet lower than Scotland’s towns (22).
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; 29% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
The car took 87% of commuters, higher than both South Lanarkshire’s towns (79%) and Scotland’s towns (70%). 23% of commuters travelled under 5 km to work. Also worth knowing: of the commuters living in Lesmahagow, 12% work in the town itself. The 2026 claimant rate among 16 to 64s was 3.5%.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
The median resident of Lesmahagow is 45.1 years old. 22% of residents are 65 or over, above South Lanarkshire’s towns (20%) and Scotland’s towns (19%) alike. The 15-to-24 age group makes up just over one in ten residents.
51% women, 49% men
About an even split. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Lesmahagow | South Lanarkshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 16% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 12% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 22% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 29% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 22% | 20% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 23% | 18% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 9% | 8.4% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 10% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 21% | 28% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · South Lanarkshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
20 notable people were born in Lesmahagow.
Jimmy Hood: Scottish Labour Party, CC BY-SA 2.0 · Andrew Gilchrist: Redaksi (Editors) "Analisa", Public domain
Town in South Lanarkshire, Scotland
Lesmahagow is a locality of 4,259 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
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lesmahagow | 4,259 | — | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Kirkmuirhill and Blackwood | 4,351 | 2.6 | — | A+ | — | C− |
| Lanark | 8,937 | 5.1 | — | A+ | — | D |
| Stonehouse | 5,591 | 5.6 | — | A+ | — | D |
| Carluke | 14,120 | 6.9 | — | A+ | — | D |
| Larkhall | 15,319 | 7.6 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Strathaven | 8,341 | 7.6 | — | A | — | C+ |
| Law | 3,293 | 7.8 | — | A+ | — | C− |
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.
Band D council tax in Lesmahagow 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.
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £175,900, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 95th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Surface water isn’t included. Check a specific address on GOV.UK’s flood risk service.
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.