Cirencester has about 66 recorded crimes for every 1,000 residents, and the honey-coloured stone does nothing to make that figure smaller. Most of it is shoplifting and nuisance in a market town that does the shopping for an entire district of villages. Beyond the till receipts, the town holds up well. Parkland is a short walk from most front doors, incomes are comfortable, and a terrace still costs a sane amount for the Cotswolds.
Gloucestershire Constabulary's records for the year to May 2026 put Cirencester at about 66 crimes per 1,000 residents, roughly 63% above the average for Cotswold district as a whole. The mix explains much of it. Shoplifting makes up 17% of recorded crime here, against 8% across England and Wales, and anti-social behaviour 23% against 16%. Gloucestershire Constabulary charges someone in about 9% of cases, against 12% nationally, though that is a force-wide figure covering the whole county. In Cirencester, a fair share of the crime walks out of a shop on Market Place with something it did not pay for.
The Land Registry recorded 219 sales in the twelve months to May 2026, at a typical price of about £335,000. Flats went for around £178,000, terraces £334,000, semis £385,000 and detached houses about £585,000. The terrace is the town's standard purchase, and it costs almost exactly the town's typical price, which settles any argument about what an ordinary Cirencester home looks like. Band C is the most common council-tax band, and 39% of homes sit in bands A or B, so the bills come in lower than the address suggests.
Renting is priced across the Cotswold district as a whole: the Office for National Statistics puts typical private rent there at about £1,260 a month as of April 2026, up 8% on a year earlier. A one-bed averages about £880 across the district and a three-bed about £1,350.
On the council-tax list, terraces are the biggest group at about 32% of homes, followed by flats at 26%, semis at 21%, detached houses at 16% and bungalows at 5%. Only 18% were built before 1930. The wool merchants' houses on Coxwell Street and Dollar Street are the town on the postcard, and most residents live in the later streets behind them. Of the homes with an energy certificate, 58% are rated A to C and 10% E or worse. About 72% heat with mains gas and 13% with electric-only systems. Electric-only heating costs a lot more to live with in an old stone cottage than in a modern flat.
Historic England lists 358 buildings in the town, three of them Grade I and 33 Grade II*, and there are four conservation areas: Cirencester Town Centre, Cirencester Park, Cirencester South, and Gloucester Street and River Walk. Seven scheduled monuments are close by, Corinium Roman town among them. Inside those boundaries, new windows, extensions and even some paint colours go through the council first. Corinium was once the second-largest town in Roman Britain by area, so digging a pond in the wrong back garden can turn into an archaeology project.
About 57% of households own their home and the median age is 45. The Office for National Statistics models gross household income at about £55,000 for the financial year to March 2023, an average across the town's three middle-layer areas. About 22% of households rent from a social landlord. Cirencester Park Polo Club, the oldest in the country, has had princes on its grounds, and the town keeps both lives going in the same few streets without much fuss. The residents' list is just as mixed: Pam Ayres, Willie Carson, Dom Joly, Peter Maxwell Davies, and Daisy May and Charlie Cooper. It would make an odd dinner party and a fairly accurate one.
On flooding, the Environment Agency puts about 8% of postcodes in the highest-risk river-and-sea flood zone and 6% in the next zone down. A broader measure counts any flood indicator, including surface water. On that one, about 10% of postcodes carry a high reading on at least one, and 21% a medium one. The Agency has six recorded floods on file, the latest in July 2007, when the River Churn overtopped its channel. For most of the year the Churn looks too small to bother anyone, which is why it pays to look at that 2007 record.
Cirencester has had no station of its own since 1964. The nearest is Kemble Rail Station, a few miles away, and fewer than 1% of working residents commuted by train at the 2021 Census. About 45% drove, and 32% worked from home. The town has 112 bus stops, which average about 16 weekday departures each, and 89% of them have some weekend service. Department for Transport models from 2019 put the town centre about 17 minutes away by public transport and 9 by car. The car time will have held up better than the bus time. Gigabit broadband reaches 82% of premises and superfast 98%. With a third of the workforce at home on a fast line, the town has more or less accepted that the railway lives in Kemble.
The 13 primary schools across the area average a Key Stage 2 maths score of about 104. The two secondaries, Cirencester Deer Park School and Cirencester Kingshill School, average an Attainment 8 score of about 51, and Cirencester College runs the sixth form next to Deer Park on Stroud Road. Across Gloucestershire as a whole, Ofsted has graded 136 of 156 settings good or outstanding. That is a county figure, not one for the town. Cirencester ran a grammar school from 1461 and merged it into Deer Park in 1966, so the local argument about selective schools ended before most of today's parents were born.
The surroundings are the town's strong suit. The nearest green space is about 130 metres from the average home, there are about 25 within a kilometre, open water is about 310 metres away and the National Cycle Network about 350. Beyond the edge are Stratton, Baunton and Siddington, then villages like Bibury, Sapperton, North Cerney and Ampney Crucis. Kemble is also the closest settlement to the source of the Thames, an easy Sunday walk that people will bring up at dinner for years.
Cirencester is right for buyers who want a working market town with real parkland, honest prices for the Cotswolds and villages within a short drive, and who are happy to drive to a station. Anyone who needs a direct train every morning, or wants a town centre that stays calm when the shops close, should look elsewhere.
The safety numbers don't match the stone. The rate runs well above the district's, and most of the problem is shoplifting and nuisance in the centre that the whole district comes into. Set that against parkland a couple of minutes from almost every door, and Cirencester still comes out ahead: a handsome, comfortable town with a busy high street that takes the hits for all the villages around it.