Market town vs village

[IggityZiggityZoom]

We are moving out of London and debating whether to live in a village or a market town. DH more inclined to live more rurally. I'm wondering if it will be too big of a jump and we'd be better off with a town. I've only ever lived in cities and am not a Brit. Any opinions?

Lived in a village 20 minutes from town when I had teenagers, it lead to hours and hours in the car running them to friends etc. It's not for me but some people love it.

We moved from London to a hamlet of four houses. I loved it.
Then circumstances dictated we moved into a market town. I love it even more. So much easier to be in town with children.
Also, massive gardens are a massive pain in the bum in my opinion!

Ok, I’ll pitch for villages. We moved from London to a village six years ago, and we bloody love it. We walk/bike to our lovely little Primary school, there are two very nice pubs, a post office, newsagent, chemist, doctors, three cafes/tea rooms, a deli, a florist, a jewellers and a museum.

There is tonnes going on - loads of activities for kids, film society, wine society, biennial charity ball, Horticultural society, WI, sports teams, fitness groups, artist open house events, I could go on.

It is an immensely friendly place - if I can’t get to school pick up for any reason there are at least a dozen other parents I could ask to grab the dc. We all help each other out with lifts to Cubs/Brownies activities and away football matches etc.

There is an ofsted outstanding secondary school in the next village - kids from our village walk or cycle there. No issues about catchments or stress about getting them in. There is a nice city not far away for theatre/shopping/dinners out, and London is commutable.

But best of all, in addition to all these amenities, I walk out of my gate and I’m in a National Park. The dc are growing up finding lizards and slow worms in the garden, and picking apples in our orchard for juicing at the village’s Apple Day. The views are beautiful, the High Street is pretty.

Not all villages are like this; a lot are stuck in the 1950s with nothing going on except gossip. But if you choose carefully, they can be wonderful places to live.

There are some nice market towns on the Hampshire/Surrey border that still mean you can be in London by train within the hour.

How about moving to a village just outside a market town or small city like Canterbury. Make sure there’s a good bus service for secondary school.

I love the feel of a village but with the knowledge shops, cafes, theatre are just down the road.

Surely it's not about whether it is called a town or a village, it's about the amenities that you/children can walk to vs the ones you don't mind driving to (or cycling, getting the bus, however you like to get around).

When we lived in a village, we could walk to nursery and school, to the chemists, to the supermarket. There were a few cafes and takeaway places, some nice walks, a couple of playgrounds, a post office, a bakery. I never felt stuck, though we did head into town fairly often.

Now we live in a market town, and I love it. I'd never go back to a village. There are so many more things we can walk to - loads of different shops, cafes, restaurants, theatre, cinema, swimming pool, fantastic park. I love just being able to stroll out shopping without a car, or being able to jump on the train for a day out. It will be so much better for the DC when they are teens - for meeting up with friends, for being independent, for walking to secondary school, for getting a Saturday job that they can just walk to rather than relying on a bus, or me driving them.

Venus
What you call a village is what we call a town.

Most villages no longer have a pub or a shop or a post office
Many only have one or two buses a day if they are lucky

Iggity
The school my kids went to has a catchment that includes some VERY rural villages.
To be able to walk to a shop and a takeaway was a big treat for their friends when they came to visit.

Rural roads are dark and dangerous in winter.
You need to drive everywhere - and will spend a LOT of time driving teenagers around.
Mobile coverage is often dire
Broadband is often pretty shite (even in Hampshire Surrey and Sussex)

THe countryside is beautiful but its a different life from the city

I live in a market town in the East Midlands. Reasonable amenities, cities about 30 mins away in different directions, plenty to do, etc. Pretty much most of the villages are so small they don't have much beyond a shop, a pub, a church and little else. Some don't even have that, and transport is shocking unless you drive everywhere.

A long time ago I moved from London to a west country market town, and now I live in a very rural village. The market town was great, I could walk to the shops and everything was on the doorstep, but a 15 minute walk the other way and you were in open countryside, so the best of both worlds. However, market towns can be a bit isolated. There was very little for teenagers in ours, but if they fancied a shopping mall, cinema etc, they would have had to do a 40 mile round trip minimum to get to the nearest large town or city. Public transport was very poor as well.
Conversely, the rural village where we now live (2 pubs, 1 shop, lots of farm animals) actually has better connections to local cities because we are not far from the M5, but there is almost zero public transport. Unless a teenager is sporty (tennis, football, sailing, riding etc), there is not a lot for them.
I think if you chose a market town, you have to also see what is available in surrounding towns too, to get a better picture. I think you will also have to accept being your children's taxi driver until they can drive themselves. Renting first sounds like a good idea.

I grew up in a village, we had a pub and a school. No shop and a bus twice a week. My parents drove us to see our friends (and moaned about it). We all learnt to drive as soon as we could. It’s lovely in summer but you will have to drive everywhere and in winter you could get stuck for days.

Talkinpeece Nope this is definitely a village. It has a village hall, a village green and a village association. And most of the other villages round here have shops, pubs and post offices too. The hamlets do not, but the villages do.

As do the villages in the area I grew up in, in the north of England. It’s simply not true to say that ‘most’ villages do not have these facilities.

You’re right about bus services though.

We live at the edge of a market town in a village. Few minutes drive to the town centre and the village is lovely for young DCs.

Market town all day long

Market town

Hey @Talkinpeece

What about Romsey? Or are you just trying to keep the city folk away?

I'm a big city girl (living in a small market town) so you know what I'll say.

What I call a village has population < 1500 living within 2 miles of the centre. 5% chance of own post office, 33% chance of 1 shop, 90% chance of one pub, 25% chance of a school. 1-2 churches. A decent village hall & naice playground.

Do you want to get in your car for almost every errand?
Do you like reliable broadband?
Do you mind oil-fired heating?
How do you feel about 2 inch thick mud on the road after sugar beet harvest?
Small town or village: the locals will all know everyone else's business & be confused that you don't.

I grew up in a village and always believed I would live a country/village life. Moved into a small city with my partner. Got married there and ended up moving to a village with our small child.

What a bloody ball ache it was! There was no where to go, nothing to do. Any time you wanted to go you had to get in the car and load everyone up. It seemed to take forever to do a simple task!

We then moved to a market town, it's a small market town but there's still.. stuff! We have a Tesco and Sainsbury's. Lots of independent shops. Activities and events going on. There's several primary schools and secondary schools that all provide after school activities. There are clubs and societies. I can walk into town with the pushchair.

For me, we have the best of both worlds. I walk down the street and I see a few people I recognise and say good morning to. But not everybody knows your business. There's places to go, people to see but it's also quiet enough that there is rarely trouble. If we have a sitter we have options of places to eat or drink rather than in the village that had one pub restaurant. I love it here!

@TeenTimesTwo
Romsey is indeed fab, but its more suburban than the ones I picked from my list ....
Places like Bishops Waltham, Alresford, Whitchurch are also really good little towns in Hampshire

suburban! wash your mouth out with soap!

Tee hee
Romsey has a train station, Buses, more than one supermarket and a nearby motorway
positively cosmopolitan
It has only got two taxis though

I live in a village just outside a small market town. The village has a shop with post office, vet, primary school, nursery & pub. Buses run into the market town one way or the nearest city (30 minutes) the other every 20 minutes. The town has 4 supermarkets, leisure centre with pool, bars, restaurants, cafes, shops etc. I've lived in big cities & also very rurally & I love where we are now. We're in the countryside but in 7 minutes I'm at the supermarket. It's ideal & a great place to bring up children. It's a large village so none of the gossiping etc that you sometimes get.

What is population of your 'village', Topsy? For me, a place with 4 supermarkets is not a village. What Topsy describes is a town.

Any recommendations for market towns or villages nearish to oxford? Ideally either south west or north.

Local Government is my speciality .....

A "Village" has a population of less than 2000
A "hamlet" has a population of less than 200

I think the OP has chosen the private school her child will be going to so is restricted to that area but of course we don't know where that is so it's very difficult to advise. One thing I would say is that if your child is going to a prep. school outside a city as ours did then most of the children will live pretty rurally. They live in country houses or on the edges of villages. Rarely did any of the children at our prep. school live in the market towns. All the parents are used to ferrying their offspring around.

We live in a village of 600 hundred. We have a pub restaurant a shop and a coffee shop, garage Drs, primary school and village hall. We have a half hourly bus and a train station and are only 35 mins from a big city and 7 miles in the other direction from a biggish town with 24hr supermarkets, a cinema, M&S, Next, TK Maxx etc. so pretty good really. The one thing I would say is that if you are educating your children privately you will have loads fewer opportunities to meet local parents so be prepared to socialise with parents from all over the county.