What does “rural” mean to you?

[HowDairy]

We see it very often on MN - “I live rurally”.
So what do you consider is rural?
Just how far out of town is proper rural living?

To me, it means that you have to drive for the essentials - milk, bread etc.
But then, “ walkable” means different things to each and every one of us, dependent on ability.
So, answering my own question, it’s basically a how long is a piece of string scenario 🤔

There’s rural, and there’s remote. We are rural. Have to drive to shops, village with just a school, church, village hall and pub but no other amenities. Surrounded by countryside but we have neighbours.

We are 7 miles from a small market town, 29 from a city.

I have lived in a remote area (nearest neighbour 3 miles, cut off in winter) but that’s not the same as rural.

Yep - grew up in a biggish village, with a primary school, village shop, GP. Hourly bus service into the local town. I’d say it was rural not urban, and there were no pavements, and cows in the next field over from our garden, but it isn’t remote or cut off.

Interesting!
In that vein, where do you put the teletubbies? Rural? Semi-rural?
Or are they really 500 yards from an housing estate, but the producer just uses really clever camera angles?

Definitely rural here. Yes, it's a village and I'm 2 minutes walk from a shop including a post office, 2 pubs and a butcher's shop. But if I walk in the other direction I can be in fields with sheep and cattle in 2 minutes too. 5 minutes walk and I'm out into the moorlands. No public transport and a 20 minute drive to the nearest small town.

Yep, I live rurally. I have to get in the car to do absolutely anything. The nearest shop is in the next village which is not too far at about a six minute drive(4.7km).
nearest supermarket in the nearest town is 18min drive (15km)
And the city is 28min drive (22km)

attached is a google earth shot of my area…

@HowDairy Teletubbies was filmed in a farmers field just outside Stratford -Upon-Avon.
Stratford is a small ish market town and the surrounding villages - some of them I would call "semi rural".... I think 🤔
Oh it's so confusing.

Somewhere McDonald's doesn't deliver to and has no 4g 😉

I live in a small town but I would describe it as living rurally as I’m in the fens and it’s a fair way to any motorways/decent roads/the nearest city with an actual department store

I can only walk a few steps so no walkable shops but there is a wheelchair able co-op

Some parts of London are a bit like that.....

I live in a village with 200 houses but only a 10 minute drive / 40 minute walk from town. House backs into fields, and live in a semi. We only have 5 near neighbours but I would say we’re semi-rural not proper rural. ETA that the nearest shop/school are in the town and my son is entitled to free school transport because of our location.

I say I live rurally. Private water supply, septic tank, 300 metres to nearest neighbour. 8 miles to buy a pint of milk. ye olde Aga to help us survive inevitable winter power cuts.

You’ve got to be a bit hardy/ prepared to live rurally.

To me, remote would be a farmhouse miles from anywhere.

The village i live has a population of just over 1,000, is in a national park and is surrounded by farms, fields and moorland.

But it does have a train station, dr, post office, dentist, butchers, bakers, hair dressers, greengrocer, general shop, even a gym and is 10 miles from a city. I suppose it counts as rural but it doesn't feel like it

I would say I am rural but not remote (Scotland).

We have a pub and a chipper. Next village has a coop and few other pubs and that's only a mile away.

But other than the village it is straight onto farmland or sea for many miles.

Nearest small town is 12 miles. Nearest small city is 35 miles but we are on A roads so not remote in the way many places are because you have to drive up a peninsula or round a mountain. It's fairly direct. However we are quite far north and so going to Glasgow or Edinburgh is a good few hours.

Edited to say we don't have mains gas but do have a fairly new substation which has coped well in some severe storms.

I would say rural means living somewhere with minimal amenities where the local economy is based on rural industry. You might be isolated but living in or near a small village with a shop plus or minus a pub or even a school would count if there was no Sainsbury 2 miles away.and you had to get in a car or track down a bus for access to hospital, range of shops etc.

Hmm.I tend to say i live in a rural village. Can walk to the local shops, but have to drive to any supermarket. Have to drive 40 minutes each way for school (tbf it's an indy) but would have to drive for a secondary school anyway... 15 minutes. Have to drive to the GP. Village surrounded by an odd industrial estate and farms. But recently had 3 housing estates accepted for planning- roughly 500 homes each- 2 in walking distance one a 4 minute-ish drive. 10 miles from our local' big' town. 40 ninutes drive from the nearest city.

I live in a small unspoilt village not particularly pretty to look at although we are surrounded by stunning views hills woodland meadows upland and the sea, the population is 160 we have a tiny shop, next village is 6 miles away and nearest town for shops (not many just essentials) is 12 miles away, if you want decent shops for clothes white goods household goods etc over 2 hours away.
Friends who come here who live in England and who would say they “live rurally” are usually taken aback by how quiet remote and rural it is here, the average population density for this region is 60/km square, the average for England is 434/km square but in some parts of the region we have the lowest population density in the UK. So when I say I “live rurally” I’m pretty sure most would agree.
Personally I think it’s heaven on earth here but I know from comments that people who stay with me it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

I grew up without mains water and the only house on the overhead electricity pylons. Nobody cared if our power went out at all. It genuinely was the middle of nowhere.

I have lived 'rurally' (per government definition) most of my life, but that has varied from 'very small market town with decent buses, several shops, pubs, cafes and takeaways' to 'small village with a farm shop (10 mins walk over fields), no fibre broadband, no mains gas and no connection to mains sewerage'.

'Rural' in the UK covers a lot of different situations. One of the unifying factors is that if you live in the same area long enough, you end up knowing hundreds of people, and if you don't know someone, you will know someone who knows them, or about them, or was at school with their aunty.

Quite right . We live "up north", and we know that civilisation ends a Watford Gap services. the M6 past our town is little more than a cart track. We are living in a "one horse" town where the horse has died!

Our nearest town has shops, church, schools population of 12,000 and so on, but it's surrounded by countryside and is right up against moorland, so is rural even though it's a town.

My first thought was "no streetlights".

Harrogate probably 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I would describe myself as living in a rural area. I live in a village which has a primary school, a GP surgery and 3 shops (including a Post Office).
It's 5 miles in each direction to a town (max population 10,000) and 15 to a large town.
We are surrounded by farmland and country lanes.
That said, I was travelling in Scotland and Northumberland last week and stayed in some very rural places with no facilities at all.

I consider where I live rural-ish. An hour into town, limited bus service that are very infrequent/stop early and a good distance walk to get to a bus stop. Where my Ex lives though is even more so - a well for water, solar panels as only source of electricity, has to buy tanks of gas for heating, no proper roads or pavements nearby, basically up the side of a mountain.

Should have said - so rural that when you call the fire brigade you need to remember to ask them to bring their own water. I totally forgot.