When people say they live “rural”, what do you envision?

[popbingo]

So many posters on MN talk about living rurally. I picture a farmhouse (or something similar) in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields and mountains. The nearest shop would be a 30 minute drive away etc.

Please share your thoughts!

I’m rural my neighbours are sheep and wildlife!! Nearest pub is 4miles away and nearest shop is 8miles away can’t go anywhere on foot and if we have appointments they have to give us at least 45min warning 😅

I live fairly rurally (by my definition, but most people see it as extreme). There is one lane, made up entirely of employees of the farm across the road (which means that privacy is a bit of a novel concept). After that, it is fields and hills as far as the eye can see! We are not on mains gas, have septic tanks in some of our gardens, and our world often smells of muck-spreading! We can only have one internet provider and one (patchy) phone company, as anything else doesn't work. Roads are narrow and bordered by hedges. Pavements don't exist, but potholes are widely available. The only street light doesn't work, with an on-going battle between whether the company or the council owns it. This means that it's pitch black at night, so head-torches are a must-have item. We are four miles from anywhere that isn't a farm, with the exception of the local tiny Welsh-medium primary school, which is mainly made up of children from farming families (or related industries). As a result of farming being the main occupation, most people have Land Rover Defenders or pick-ups, and our clothes are usually in various shades of black, brown, dark green or perhaps navy! Our smart 'going out' shoes tend to involve labels like Redback, Blundstones or Yakka. Local children tend to play out on ride-on tractors with trailers more often than on bikes.

It is a 10-15 minute drive at 50-60mph (interspersed with a 20 zone) into town (unless you are stuck behind a tractor). The shops in town include (but are not limited to) agricultural ones that sell everything from chicken feed and power-tools to XXL boxes of laundry powder. The nearest vet surgeries both have livestock departments and small animal ones. You would be virtually stranded if you didn't have a car, so thank goodness that groceries can be delivered, and neighbours give each other a lift when your car has to go to the garage for its MOT! The people in the nearest (small) city are said to be of a VASTLY different breed😆and we all breathe a sigh of relief when we leave behind 'the city' for the green fields on our way home!

I find when people on MN say they live rurally, they just mean they don’t live in a major city. 😂

I live rurally. We live on a farm with only one other house within about a mile. Closest supermarket is a 15 minute drive away. No public transport. My view out the window is of the moor.

I live in a new-ish estate of almost 4k people, 3 mins drive outside three somewhat merged towns that total around 100k people…and less than 10 mins from a motorway. People in the estate still firmly state they live in ‘the country’.

For what it’s worth i would see village living a good drive from a large population centre as rural, even if there’s schools/shops/pubs nearby!

I find it very subjective, people often confuse rural with being isolated

We live in a small village of around 500 that has a church and community run village store and ‘pub’ that’s ran out of a mobile home and operated by volunteers from the village, the stock is supplied by our local farms. We don’t have a school or ‘proper’ supermarket, not even a little coop or Tesco

We’re not on a gas line, so everyone has an oil tank and to get to the nearest supermarket or ‘big’ village you have to drive 15-20 minutes through farmland - BUT we are very close to an A road and the roads to get to our village aren’t one track so I consider us well connected. We have a village bus (it’s like a people carrier) that you can prebook if you need to go anywhere

Deliveroo recently started delivering to us - very pleased about that

I think I live rurally. Village is 25 minutes walk away. Nearest supermarket about 30 minutes by car. No Ubers, no food delivery, bus to big town 4x a day from village. No effing mobile phone signal. But and it's a big but 6 minutes from major motorway junction.

I lie on a sunbed topless in the garden, no one can see me!

Nearest big supermarket 18 miles round trip. That's rural... to me anyway.

Oh, yes, and no gas.

Only oil.

Could not do deliveroo or Uber in a million years. We don't really exist. I like it!

As an urbanite, I’d consider anywhere with single track roads rural and anywhere that I’m more likely to see a farm animal than a mode of public transport rural.

I actually live in a town which is considered a rural community due to the larger area it’s in. It’s comprised mostly of villages with some small towns, all of which have under 10k inhabitants, and the vast majority have under 5k.

So for me, somewhere like Dolgellau I’d consider rural, even though that’s a town. Rural to me doesn’t necessarily mean an isolated farm house out in the sticks.

Depends as if the county doesn’t have a city it’s classed as rural and will have limited police force, so everyone’s interpretation is different.

200 people live where I do...spread out

All good. But if you sneeze someone knows about it 😂

Our neighbour calls our area rural.

It’s maybe a 20 minute walk to a train /bus station/ town.
It’s just overlooks a lake with plenty of greenery, huge garden etc.

Exactly as OP describes and pp have posted would be my description!

The sort of place I want to move to 😊. I’m on the edge of NW London with some farmland and huge ancient woodland. Many livery yards including where I keep my own horse. However it’s all blighted by HS2 and scared this lovely green belt will be turned into housing.
Wanting to move and Somerset seems ideal for us, DD has just joined the Royal Navy and likely to be based at Yeovilton as she’s in the Fleet Air Arm

Oh, and I forgot to add- our two noisy nights of the year occur when the lambs are being weaned!

In the area that I grew up in, the silence and occasional escapee farm animal scared my townie friends. They naturally assumed that I was lying until they saw and heard it for themselves. However, even I batted an eyelid and thought, "How unusual!" when a donkey ran past me as I waited at the bus stop one day.

Oh, and I forgot to add- our two noisy nights of the year occur when the lambs are being weaned!

Same, we have an absolute racket when the calves are taken off the cows each autumn.

Now I'm wondering what the difference between a hamlet and a village is! We don't use the term hamlet at all in Ireland. I'm assuming it's basically a really small village?

Surrounded on all 4 sides by land, either ours or the dairy farm next door…can just about see the chimneys of their house from upstairs….single track lane at bottom of garden. Six miles to nearest market town, one bus per day in either direction if you go one mile to bus stop, fifteen miles to supermarket and hospital, schools were eight miles one way for DD and seven miles in opposite for DS. Scattered individual houses/farmsteads around but not in view. Cars essential. Kids learnt to drive and bought themselves cars at 17, gave them independence and the ability to be social without our input. No downsides…..except maybe it’s a long way to go if you forget the bread!

Our property is the only one in our commune. We're on a very quiet lane. Nearest neighbours are about a mile away in any direction. We're surrounded by woodland and fields full of deer and wild boar. The nearest (small) town is only about 3 miles away though.

I live in one of a string of villages along a peninsula- sea on one side, river in the other. About 150 people in our village with a small shop, pub, church and doctors surgery. 10 miles to the nearest small town with a co-op, 20 miles to a big supermarket. It’s a big farming area with fields and heathland either side of one long road in and out. Lots of wildlife and big open skies.

Edited to add: no public transport whatsoever, only emergency services we tend to see are the coastguard crew, who are all local.

I envisage the arse end of nowhere.

Little to no transport links so you're fucked if your car breaks down, no local supermarkets or food deliveries and no pavement to walk on if you want to go anywhere on foot.

I live rural or so they say cos I live in the country and it is a 30 minute walk to the local shop lol my nearest neighbour I can just about see their house but to get to the town I have to drive thru the woods

Also no public transport anywhere near us x

We don't use the term hamlet at all in Ireland. I'm assuming it's basically a really small village?

I use hamlet to mean a small collection of houses, spread out, with no other amenities in the vicinity like shops. So wouldn't qualify as a village.

Do it @BobbySox71, do it! I am a mile up a single track lane, surrounded by nothing but fields, with the Quantock Hills in the background and have just come in from the garden, having been sitting on my bench, having a last cup of tea, in total darkness, enjoying the beautiful full moon and the Persid meteor shower, (which is very active tonight!), listening to owls, the night sounds and watching bats flitting about. Heaven on Earth!!!