Owners, and not many of them are young. Around seven in ten households own their home outright or on a mortgage. The typical resident is fifty. Getting on for three in ten households is one person living on their own. This is somewhere people arrive and then stop moving, which is restful if you have arrived and slow going if you are still trying to.
The Census of 2021, which is the source for every population figure on this page, puts owner-occupation across the Templecombe area at about 68%. Private renting accounts for roughly 19% and social renting about 12%. That is a market where most of the housing is held rather than traded, and it is the single fact that explains why so little comes up for sale in any given year.
The median age across the area is 50. The share aged between 25 and 44, the years when people are usually buying a first house and filling a primary school, sits at around 20%. Both numbers point the same way. Anyone imagining a village humming with young families should look at that second figure twice, because the young families here exist, they are just outnumbered.
Household income across the area was modelled at roughly £51,000 gross in the financial year to March 2023, which is before tax and before anything else leaves the account. After tax, the same modelling puts net household income at about £39,000. That is a description of incomes three years ago rather than today, and it is an average across the wider area rather than a figure any particular household would recognise.
The household make-up follows from the age profile. About 28% of households are a single person, and single pensioners account for about 15%, sitting inside that figure rather than alongside it. Couples with children make up around 17%, and lone-parent households about 7%. The picture is a place built around one and two-person households, with families as a real but minority presence in Templecombe and the villages around it.
On qualifications, roughly 31% hold a degree-level qualification and about 17% hold none at all, with full-time students at around 1%. That is a mixed picture rather than a uniform one, and the student figure is the one worth noticing if you were hoping to let a spare room. There is no student market here. There is barely a student.
Health reports well. About 82% describe their health as good or very good, and around 5% as bad or very bad, which for an area with this median age is a decent showing. Across the Somerset council area, smoking prevalence runs at about 11%, similar to England, and preventable mortality is better than the England rate. Those last two are council-wide measures covering everywhere from the Levels to the Dorset border, not this village's own.
One footnote worth knowing before reading any of the above too literally: just 12 people across the whole area live in communal establishments rather than private households. Everything else on this page describes essentially the entire population, with no halls of residence or large care home distorting the shares.
The people here are the ordinary middle of rural England, which is neither a compliment nor a complaint. Templecombe will not surprise you with who your neighbours are, and if you are under forty with a young family you will find your people, just fewer of them than the estate agent's photograph of the primary school gate implies.