To ask where is the best place to buy a cheap rural house?

[hibbledobble]

Looking for somewhere within 3-4 hours of London, 3+ bedrooms, character house, ideally with a decent size garden, under £200k. Is this doable?

It's possible in Devon and Cornwall. You would need to research the areas though as a lot of places in that price range are in not very nice parts of town.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-77769631.html

You might have to compromise a bit though because character at that price range tends to mean cottage with a small garden or modern with a big garden eg Brixham is a picturesque small fishing town with a good community spirit and an excellent grammar school nearby but you might not get everything you want.

Fisherman's Cottages
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-64171663.html
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-83508584.html

Modern but with views and a big garden
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-89805815.html

This one is a bit eccentric!
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-93777290.html

Half of northern France!

Lincolnshire, north Nottinghamshire, the unfashionable bits of Derbyshire maybe?

Brixham is hardly rural and woukd take longer than 4 hours if traffic was shite.

Not in the southwest. We are 3 hours from London (I work in London and commute, yes, you heard that right). We are currently trying to find a place to buy in our area and further out so all 3-4 hours from London, and detached houses with a normal sized plot are in the 450-650K range. We are looking for land and outbuildings (have a business to move with us that needs an outbuilding). We have up to 700K to spend and it's a bit of a nightmare (had an amazing house, but vendors pulled out due to COVID just before exchange).

Less than 200K would buy you a flat or small terraced house around here. If you look up in Wales or rural parts of the North and Scotland, you are likely to do a bit better (I'd love to move there, if I didn't have to commute and if we didn't have business ties to this area). We could literally buy an f-ing castle.

@SylvieL33

Brixham is hardly rural and woukd take longer than 4 hours if traffic was shite.

I didn't realise the OP wanted rural as it isn't in the main body of the post. Although Brixham has a lot of the good bits of rural life, countryside, sea, community life but still has a few decent places to eat, good schools, which you won't get in a village in the middle of nowhere, like the first property I posted.

Having done the Devon/London commute for several decades, it is easily done in under 4 hours most of the time. Traffic can be shite anywhere... There is also the option of driving to Exeter and getting the fast train (2 hours to Paddington).

My mil lives in a gorgeous cottage on NT land with woods steps away,an hour from London. 400k 3 bed with gorgeous garden and detached garage. Way more rural than most I’ve seen on here.

I think the term “rural” needs a bit more clarification.

Not too far from a train station would be my first priority. South of Scotland maybe.

Lincolnshire very rural and very cheap. Can get some nice properties and only 1.5 hours into London on the train (eg. Grantham, fast trains even shorter time). But with Lincolnshire you need to be aware of the areas....very flat countryside. Towards the coast can be a bit rough and ready in places, Spalding way is very fenland country. That apart, there are some lovely villages.

Leicestershire is good but you need to find an area that steers clear of the towns, slightly higher prices, pretty countryside.
Also worth looking at Shropshire, Derbyshire (Peak District beautiful but higher prices - still doable). Northamptonshire in certain parts.

If you want longer commuting times you can obviously go further afield, like Wales....but that's some commute!

Make sure you are really clear about what you want if you are seriously looking. There is a difference between "countryside" (fields, trees, market towns) and "rural". You will get a lovely house for your price range in a rural area but you need to accept it will be remote, you will be dependent on the car, the tiny lanes will be idyllic but treacherous in winter and full of tractors in the summer. Probably a lack of jobs so any decent income will almost certainly mean commuting to London, unless you can work from home full time.

Might just be doable in Herefordshire, though more character houses might be a stretch. But it’s 2h 40m to Paddington from Hereford, so we’ll within your travel limit, and very rural in a lot of the county.

North Lincolnshire

Rural doesn't always mean remote - many on MN use rural to mean isolated but the official classification of rural areas is much wider:

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geoportal.statistics.gov.uk/search?q=Rural%20Urban%20Classification%20Maps%20LSOAs&sort=name

People use the term rural in different ways and it's worth clarifying what is meant and whether its to live or a holiday home and how often do you need to get back to London. I presumed the OP has a job that can be done from anywhere and it was a house move but it's not totally clear.

geoportal.statistics.gov.uk/search?q=Rural%20Urban%20Classification%20Maps%20LSOAs&sort=name

Near Sheffield.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-81701293.html

The trouble with moving to a rural area is that locals are very protective of their county

Oh yes! We moved to Cornwall last year after spending 30 years in London. I grew up in Gloucestershire and my husband in Oxfordshire so we thought we knew rural life ; and my dad and siblings were already settled down there so we'd visited a lot....

Living there was completely different. We were used to a lifestyle where we could walk to the shops, walk to a pub, walk to a restaurant and pop along to a museum on a wet Saturday afternoon for an hour just because. Now we're 40 min drive from Truro which is the only city. We have to drive everywhere. Going to London takes forever on the train, but there's a good service from the airport in Newquay most of the time.

And the people resent us. We have made few friends - the kids have loads so that's ok and if it wasn't for them thriving here, we'd move back tomorrow.

wiltshire?
Lots of ruralness and the full range of prices

But if a project though @Alsohuman !

Honestly it's places like Wiltshire that put the 'cunt' into countryside.

I went there to visit my daughter who got a job in a village that shall remain nameless on a roman road parallel to the motorway.

I was asked THREE times in the local shop what I was doing in their precious village. Seriously.

The village houses seemed to have been all sold to the very rich. A lot of horse boxes and security Gates.

I was so glad t leave it was horrible.
Even the bus driver shouted at me and accused me if trying to palm off an old pound coin on him that had got into my change....

Just about everywhere is 4 hours from London.

I dunno, Wales probably.

It's worth looking at Bedfordshire. 1 -2 hours to London and surprisingly cheap.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-77635270.html

@BikeRunSki

But if a project though *@Alsohuman* !

True, I got carried away by its beauty. It’s the character that’s the sticking point - character adds £££.

@SylvieL33

Brixham is hardly rural and woukd take longer than 4 hours if traffic was shite.

You can spend two just trying to get round it at times. Or into it in the first place once the convoys of caravans and second home owners are on the move, even before things like the Pirate Festival or roadworks on the single lane main road.

So much so, DP used to park at his Nan's in Torquay and catch the boat over, rather than spend most of Saturday stuck in a traffic jam.

This one is in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-59747532.html

Within 3/4 hours of London is scotland 😂
Plenty good priced houses there .

Look at rural Lancashire