A question for rural living OS members

dandy-candy

Part of my on going plan to be more frugal and old style is to eventually move to the countryside and have a smallholding. It isn't just to have the space to grow my own veg and keep livestock, but to be in a like minded community. I don't want to be anywhere to remote, but on the edge of village seems a perfect idea.
When we do countryside drives we see lots of pretty "Miss Marple" type villages and I would love to live in them. I imagine everyone being quaint and old fashioned, and having village fete's, joining the W.I. etc etc. Is that what village life is really like or did that die out in the 1950's? Have I been watching to many period dramas?


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zcrat41

The countryside isn't a theme park. Its a living, breathing, often industrial space. Muck gets spread on an industrial scale, farmers will put in planning applications for wind turnbines/pig sheds/grain sheds that might ruin your view,combines will start to do the field behind your house at 10pm on a summer sunday and may well work all night. The people who live in it aren't all transported from Agatha Christie novels - people have affairs, get drunk and crash their cars and murder their wives. (All things that have happened in my village in the last 10 years.) They gossip, you will not be treated anything but an outsider until your grandchildren at least are on the scene. It can be a very close minded community. You don't often come across gay people or different races - and it very much shows in the attitudes of some of the older residents. My grandparents for example, who live in a rural scottish village did not appreciate the fact I lived with my DH before we married (and that was after engagement which I thought was quite traditional!) Oh, and the buses are crap and fuel is expensive.

Having said that, I live in the country and I LOVE IT. It's the best place in the world to bring up kids, you develop relationships with friends and neighbours like nowhere else. Being able to take the dog for a walk in beautiful surroundings, look out our window onto the village church, pop into our elderly neighbours and listen to their pre war farming stories, make jam with blackberries I've picked, to get hammered in the local with people I've know for 30 years. (I'm only 30!)

Good luck if you decide to do it. Get to know some rural people before you move - you can join that WI/bowls club/church before you move to see if you fit in.

Angel_Jenny

I have a really idealised view of village life - imagining jam making and quilting clubs and all sorts of wonderful things!

fashionlover10

I moved into a medium-sized village with my OH a couple of months ago and since the lady who runs the W.I knocked on our first night to introduce herself to us only one person has bothered to talk to us (the neighbour opposite us) despite our attempts to make friendly conversation.

We really stick out compared to the people who live around us as we're an unmarried (but living together :eek: :rotfl:) couple in our 20s whereas everyone else is middle aged with a family or retired.

The buses are shocking with just 1 every other hour stopping around 6pm and the train station is a half hour walk away. The only shop is an overpriced Co-Op and it's a 9 mile trip each way to the supermarkets in the nearest town. I don't drive so have to go shopping on OHs only day off (much to his disgust!)

BUT! Don't let that put you off :rotfl: I LOVE it here and when we have our own family I'd love to move to a more rural village where I can live out my own idealistic dreams of growing my own food, raising some chickens (and maybe a goat too) and letting my children round around in the fresh air.

sairy2005

I was born and brought up in a village. I have lived on the edge of a city (Cambridge) and then back to a village again. (We had a small holding and business there) I loved it all. But we then moved to a small village with no pub, no shop and every one seemed related to every one else, the post office sent some one to open 3 hours a week in the village hall (I suppose for pensions). The people who worked left home early and got back late so it was really quiet in the daytime. I hated it. I only knew the next door neighbours and they were always moaning about our trees. To be fair I had been very ill prior to moving there (major heart surgery) so didnt feel very well most of the time. I stuck it 2 years then moved to a small town in North Norfolk.
I like it much better here. I would like to move back to Cambridge but cannot afford to. So I will stay here for a while at least. I help in the local charity shop and have got to know quite a few people.
So it is like every thing else. Some villages are great. If you make friends easily you will probably be OK. Just do your home work and be careful which village you move to.

Fruball

I moved out into the sticks (village of under 100 houses and a mile away from the pub, half mile to post office, 5+ miles to supermarket) and spent 3 very happy years there.

We were welcomed immediately (thanks to the pub and it's locals!) and made a lot of friends pretty quickly.

I did go to a few WI meetings, helped with a community project and various charity events, joined the local bowls team and pub quiz nights.

It was exactly as I had hoped it would be and I hope to be in a position to live out in a village again one day.

RosiePuddingPaws

I hope if you do move that it does turn out to be like you imagine, but fear you may be disappointed. The village I used to live in looked quaint, but has a thriving drug-taking community and a lot of trouble with youngsters throwing eggs and flour as "there is nothing to do". There was also a them and us thing between those who had lived there for generations and those who had recently moved in (within the last 20 years or so!).

I now live in another village. The pub has closed due to insufficient trade. There is little public transport. The roads are full of pot holes. Although there is a version of the WI, those who attend are all mature and there is (I understand) still little for the youth to do. You rarely see your neighbours as you are at work and so are they, or, like mine, they are retired and don't go out much at the weekends/evenings.

As mentioned above, country life is quite mechanized and industrial (and fragrant!). It may look pretty but it is a workplace. It has its challenges and problems - much like everywhere else. Try and find the area you like the look of and try and join things to see if its for you.

RPP

Helen2k8

The harsh realities include... everyone commutes, so the high street is clogged with cars. There are no shops left. Everyone else who can afford to live here is of the age where their last child is just leaving private education to go to Oxford. You can imagine the money/status floating around.
The closest Co-op/ATM is 20 minutes walk over muddy dark fields (fine in July, not in December), and it closes early on a Sunday (no 24 hour supermarkets). I spent a fortune on petrol or delivery charges, I have no social life - there is no such thing as popping to town for a drink. I am not linked to mains gas so pay extra for LPG. The roads don't get gritted, the streetlights are turned off to save council money.
I am close enough to a city to be near the sewage works and the airport, and a prime site for fly-tipping...

The rich/poor gap seems to be as extreme in the countryside as it is in town

redlady_1

I agree 100% with zcrat41. You cant be squeamish either as there is often an exchange of dead animals that takes place in the pub. The smells can be really severe and it is very much a closed community. You will definitely need to drive and depending upon where you are will depend upon internet and mobile phone coverage. Things are definitely not rosey and outsiders are treated with suspicion.

Its a bit like the second home owners in Cornwall who dont want the fishermen to haul their catch on the harbour because it interfers with their way of life!

That said I grew up in a tiny village and everyone knew everyone else. I abolutely loved being able to run down the field, jump the dyke and dodge the dead pheasants hanging in my grans porch to demolish her fresh bread and proper butter

Oh by the way, there is a planning app in to reinstate a chicken shed that has been mothballed for some time. It is causing total havoc in the village but I suspect will go ahead. I believe there will be at least 10,000 chickens in there.

redlady_1

sorry, got the numbers wrong. They want to house 224. 000 birds in 5 sheds!

Its not just smallerholders who want to have chickens!

thriftwizard

The small town I live in is technically a village by size (pop. 5,000) but a town by function - has a town hall, several schools, a cinema/theatre, 2 supermarkets & a range of other shops covering most things you might want to buy, two surgeries, two dental practices, a library & churches etc. in several flavours. It serves a big area & has a number of satellite "Miss Marple" type villages; people often move out to those when they can afford to, and usually move back in again about 5 years later! We're in a pretty wealthy area & most of what elsewhere would be smallholdings are "equestrian properties" now; people actually doing something with their land (rather than keeping Fenella & Oscar's ponies on it) might spoil the view or cause smells or mud on the road & would get very short shrift in the celebrity-chef, £50-per-meal-per-head "locals"! And usually both adults are working (no divorcees out there, too expensive) and Nanny buys their jam in Waitrose after dropping the kids off to prep school/nursery.

In a sense, we have the best of both worlds here; most of the amenities of living in town, but 5 minutes' stroll & I'm walking in some of the loveliest countryside in the UK. I've always wanted to move to somewhere more rural & have a much bigger garden, having been born & raised in a small village, but not here, not even if I win the Lottery. It's not how it used to be; there's precious little community spirit (with one or two honourable exceptions) your garden produce is at constant risk of spray-drift, there are no buses at all because most of the inhabitants wouldn't be seen dead anything but a new 4x4, the doctor won't come out to you (though the district nurse might, in a week or two) and you are very much at risk of burglars who think everyone who lives in the country must be rich! All things that have happened to people I know... hopefully it's not like that everywhere, I'm keeping my dream alive, and fingers crossed you get your chance too, but choose your location well!