Yes, and not marginally. Recorded crime sits more than a quarter below the county rate. The whole year's tally would fit comfortably on one page. Almost nobody here is out of work and almost nobody lives in a crowded home. Downton is the sort of place where the crime map needs zooming in before anything appears on it at all.
Police.uk's published neighbourhood figures put recorded crime at about 45 offences per 1,000 residents in the year to May 2026, roughly 28% below the local authority average, across 149 recorded offences over that period. Both numbers are published as they stand. The rate is built on a statistical-area population rather than the resident headcount, so the count and the rate are not two versions of the same sum, and anyone dividing one into the other to check the working will get a third number that means nothing.
Set side by side in the same terms, Wiltshire as a whole records about 62 offences per 1,000 residents. Downton records about 45. That gap is the entire answer to the question.
The texture around those figures is what you would expect of a village on the edge of open country: population density averaging about 873 people per square kilometre, unemployment at about 1%, and overcrowded households at about 1%. Those are descriptions of the place, not explanations of the crime figure. Drawing a causal line between them is a habit people bring with them rather than anything the numbers offer.
The mix of offences needs handling with care. With 149 crimes spread across ten categories, a handful of incidents shifts any share by several points, so what follows is a snapshot rather than a settled trait of the village. Violence and sexual offences account for about 26% locally against about 35% nationally. That category is a broad statutory grouping covering everything from serious assault to common assault without injury, which is why it heads the table nearly everywhere and why quoting it bare makes any village sound like a war zone. Criminal damage and arson run at about 22% locally against about 7% nationally, the one genuine outlier in the set. Anti-social behaviour sits at about 17% against about 16% nationally, vehicle crime at about 9% against about 5%, and public order and other theft both land at about 7%, level with the national shares.
What happens after a report is a force-level question rather than a village one. Wiltshire Police charged a suspect in about 10% of cases over the year to May 2026, against about 12% nationally, ranking the force 32nd of 42. About 34% of cases closed with no suspect identified at all. That is the honest answer to whether anyone gets caught, and it belongs in a separate column from the crime rate: how much happens and what follows are different problems, and blending them produces a conclusion neither number supports.
Safety is the strongest thing on Downton's record, and it is not a close call. Of all the things worth weighing before moving here, this is not the one that should cost you any sleep.