Pros & Cons of Living In A Village

[ILoveThinLizzy]

Your insights please?

This is more for a friend (who is considering moving to a village outside London) but it will be useful for me too, in a few years.

I live and work in London ATM - and apart from the cosmopolitan vibe, I feel - irrationally - that I'll be missing out on something if I do move now. Good jobs, eligible men , meeting friends on the spur of the moment etc.

Thank you.

crikeybadger you are most welcome to the beautiful devonshire countryside :P

I live in a small village (30 houses or so, just a pub and a church - no shop) in South Wales. We moved here from London proper (NW6). I agree with other posters on pro's and cons but wanted to add a con I've found:
We are a "young" family - DH and I in our early 30's with a 7 yr and 6 month old. A lot of the other villagers are elderly and are constantly telling us what to do. It's sweet and parental in nature but can be a bit annoying to be told when to cut your grass, what you should do re your fence, that you need to rod your drains, that you should park your car there etc...
My DH quite enjoys it but I do get a bit irritated by that sometimes.

I love in a village; its fab. Wonderful nursery, reasonable primary and secondary schools, doctors in the village, bus stop 500m with county town 20 mins drive away. Village has a deli, a dentist, chinese, indian, good chippy, next village down the valley does takeaway pizza...

We know the folk in our road, people at nursery, folk at toddler group but are generally not well known which gives us lots of acquaintances, a few good friends and nobody who knows our inside leg measurements...

We always joked about living somewhere with a deli - since it says something about the place and its inhabitants and we deliberately chose a village big enough to support a school (the deli was a bonus tbh) and we wouldn't change it for the world.

I think much of it depends on your age and family status. I was born and raised in the city and loved it, it was just the place for a teenager and young adult but now I'm an old boot older woman and mother I want different things in life.

I love living in my village because:

It's beautiful and it's peaceful.
There's practically no crime.
The primary schools are super.
It's quiet and there's room to walk and space to breathe.
There's great community spirit.
I'm still close to a city and larger towns.

Downsides?

Public transport is pants, one bus every couple of hours and expensive.
It can be very bleak in the wintertime.
Facilities and shops are very limited with only one shop.
Older children become easily bored and it's expensive/time consuming to either constantly pay bus fares to get them into town or to ferry them about in a car.
People although friendly do tend to know your business and gossip.

I live in an old bungalow on 4 acres with no neighbours and a small village a few fields away and I hope to be here forever. I love my freedom and privacy here, how close my children are to nature, the wildlife, the silence! I let my children run our fields doing whatever they please (within reason) with no worry of being knocked down. The village is extremely tight nit and revolves around the church which is quite tough as we are not religious however the activities, gala days etc are fab for our kids and the nursery/school has a very good rep'. I likke that Im not in the heart of the village, that might be a bit too much for me to handle with the gossip and everyone knowing your business...definately more pros than cons for us. x