Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Council tax at Band D comes to £1,682. With 4,761 residents, it is a town in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland.
Cost of living is its strong suit: the median home sold for £141,600, 3.6 years of area income. It is easy to get around without a car (B+): 18% of commuters walk, cycle or take public transport. Health is a weak point: men here can expect to live to 78.8, women to 82.9. Elsewhere it is close to typical: B− for schools and B− for hazard risk.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · commuting, Census 2022 · life expectancy, ONS · flood risk, SEPA. Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Bowling and Old Kilpatrick has no Safety Grade and, without it, 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 Bowling and Old Kilpatrick is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Bowling and Old Kilpatrick has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
The 3 things Bowling and Old Kilpatrick does most differently from other towns.
Historic Environment Scotland lists 12 buildings inside Bowling and Old Kilpatrick’s locality, 10 of them in the second category, and 3 scheduled monuments.
Explore the history →12 listed buildings in Bowling and Old Kilpatrick.
Parish Church and Graveyard: Photo: Lairich Rig · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Bowling Basin, Swing Bridge: Photo: Thomas Nugent · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Lusset Road, Lusset House: Photo: Richard Sutcliffe · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Old Secession Church: Photo: Richard Sutcliffe · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Geograph
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Bowling and Old Kilpatrick.
Of the 8 towns in West Dunbartonshire, Bowling and Old Kilpatrick has the smallest share in bad or very bad health: 7.1%. 79% of people in Bowling and Old Kilpatrick rate their own health good or very good. Men in Bowling and Old Kilpatrick can expect to live to 78.8, women to 82.9 (2020–24).
| Census 2022 | Bowling and Old Kilpatrick | West Dunbartonshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 79% | 75% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 7.1% | 9% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 23% | 28% | 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.
There is one school here; it is shown below. The town’s primary school has 262 pupils.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gavinburn Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 262 | – |
Private renters make up nearly one in ten households, above West Dunbartonshire’s towns (8%) but below Scotland’s towns (13%). Just over one in ten households live in social housing. The median, £141,600, rests on 292 sales in Bowling and Old Kilpatrick’s data zones from 2023 to 2025.
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.
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 32% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
Driving is how four in five commuters got to work at the census. 2% of commuters who live in Bowling and Old Kilpatrick also work there. This West Dunbartonshire town counts 0.2 jobs per working resident. Short trips to work, under 5 km: 25%, lower than both West Dunbartonshire’s towns (37%) and Scotland’s towns (44%).
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.
Category B covers 10 of them. For its size, Bowling and Old Kilpatrick has the second most listed buildings of the towns in West Dunbartonshire. The national list protects 3 ancient monuments in the town.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Just over a fifth of residents have reached 65. The 15-to-24 age group: 10%, close to West Dunbartonshire’s towns (11%) and below Scotland’s towns (12%). Half of Bowling and Old Kilpatrick is older than 50.6, half younger. Among adults, 29% have a degree.
52% women, 48% men
About 93 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Bowling and Old Kilpatrick | West Dunbartonshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 11% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 10% | 11% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 22% | 24% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 35% | 29% | 27% |
| 65+ | 22% | 20% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 14% | 21% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 11% | 9.8% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 12% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 29% | 22% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · West Dunbartonshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Bowling and Old Kilpatrick. Best known first.
Castle · Historic Environment ScotlandDumbarton Castle4 km outside town, to the west
MuseumClydebank Museum and Art Gallery2.7 km outside town, to the southeastAttractionAttractionAuchentoshan Distillery200 m outside town, to the eastAttractionAttractionTitan Crane2.9 km outside town, to the southeastCastleCastleDargavel House4.3 km outside town, to the southwestAttractionAttractionOvertoun Bridge2.8 km outside town, to the northwestPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
8 notable people were born in Bowling and Old Kilpatrick.
Town in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland
Bowling and Old Kilpatrick is a locality of 4,761 people, in the West Dunbartonshire 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bowling and Old Kilpatrick | 4,761 | — | — | B+ | — | C |
| Erskine | 14,857 | 1.6 | — | A | — | C− |
| Duntocher and Hardgate | 6,573 | 1.7 | — | B+ | — | C− |
| Clydebank | 26,220 | 2.1 | — | A− | — | D− |
| Bishopton | 10,048 | 2.4 | — | B− | — | A− |
| Faifley | 4,785 | 2.5 | — | A− | — | D− |
| Renfrew | 23,812 | 4.3 | — | A | — | D |
| Dumbarton | 21,027 | 4.4 | — | B+ | — | 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 £141,600, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 249th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Band D council tax in Bowling and Old Kilpatrick is £1,682 for 2026–27, less than in 92% of UK towns (council, county, police and fire). Your own bill depends on your home’s band; check it on GOV.UK.
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.
