Horncastle

Antiques, vape shops and wet carpets.

Twinned with a flooded antique shop

61/100Crap Score

People from here are Yellowbellies.

Too small for the table, which starts at 10,000 people, but it still scores 61. Higher scores are crapper.

How the score works

Have your say

Crap Town of the Year 2026/27

See the race

The public vote. It's separate from the Crap Score, and it closes on 31 December 2027.

Letters from the locals

Got something to say about Horncastle? Write in.

Old and wet.

Antique shops, Roman walls and flood defences that don't work when it rains.

Horncastle is antique shops, charity shops and a lot of pubs for a town this size, all behind a few bits of Roman wall. It floods. They built flood defences. It still floods, and everyone argues about who was meant to work them.

When the rain isn't coming in, the sewage is. The overflows round here spill for 8.9 times as long as the typical town's. Barclays and Lloyds have both announced closures, which in a town this small works out at 8.1 times the typical town's rate. The banks left. The antiques stayed. Louth calls it a backwater. Louth's not wrong.

The editor, who left before the rain

What the score is made of

Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.

Horncastle's 96 for sewage spills means it's crapper than 96% of towns.

Sewage spills96/1002,436 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
Broadband85/1007.2% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 33.0% across the East Lindsey council area
Fly-tipping55/10010.4 incidents per 1,000 people a year, East Lindsey council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
Criminal damage and arson54/1007.3 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
Food hygiene53/1002.8% rated 0 to 2, of the 72 food businesses with a rating
Serious road collisions48/1002.4 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
Anti-social behaviour48/10015.0 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
Air pollution37/1005.1 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 7.1 of fine particles, 2024 average
Rain34/100122 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
Deliberate fires10/1001.8 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026

**Your patch: Lincolnshire**Towns in the same county. Top of the table is crappest.
Pos	Town	National	Score
6	Scunthorpe	269th	73
7	Louth	304th	69
8	Cleethorpes	317th	68
9	Spalding	352nd	64
–	Horncastle	–	61
10	Grantham	467th	53
11	Stamford	529th	46
12	Sleaford	539th	45
In danger of becoming nice from here down.13	Humberston and New Waltham	667th	32

Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.

Horncastle by numbers

Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.

Crime, muck and dodgy water

What's left on the high street

Getting about, getting online, getting rained on

East Lindsey council

Have a crap-off

Horncastle against your mate's town, and a match ticket to rub it in.

Against

HorncastleCrap Score 61

Coningsby and TattershallCrap Score 48

Ten ingredients. One verdict. Who's crapper? The higher Crap Score takes it.