Pros and cons of living in a small village

[Alwaystryingtoohard]

As the title states really… found a lovely house to potentially move to but it is in a village about 10 min drive to the nearest town. Currently have a 3 month & 2 year old. Wondering what the pros and cons of moving there might be?

Thanks!

We love rural living but it took some getting used to.

pros - very safe, good community of the few of us who are here, peace, space.

cons - no take aways, everyone gets lost, can’t walk to the pub / shops, emergency services take a long time to get to you (45 mins when my husband had his heart attack) bad phone signal.

My pros don’t seem a very long list, but it’s absolutely heaven where we are and we love it. We are 10 mins in the car to the nearest village.

Oh, and everyone knows everyone else’s business. There are zero secrets!

Thinking ahead... you will be a taxi for the next 18 years. (Does the village have its own Primary school and how big is it?). For example... we live in the same village as the Secondary school. Which means DD can pick and chose clubs, going to the library after school etc. Whereas the ones reliant on the School bus to some of the other catchment villages either xatch the school bus straight after school or a parent picks them up as there is no public bus between the villages (and its several miles to walk!).

I think this varies hugely. We also live in a very small village and obviously have friends and relatives locally who we socialise with. But I would have literally no idea what the postmistress or the village shop owner or pub landlord or whatever are up to - I wouldn’t even know their names. There is a village Facebook group but just the usual tradespeople advertising services, and lost cats/ferrets/ponies on the road.

I don’t recognise at all the portrayal of village life I sometimes read on here - it sounds like something from a previous era.

We just moved to a small village, 6 months ago.

CON - No pub, restaurant, cafe etc within walking distance.

PRO - Everyone socialises together, often outdoors in the green space. In warm weather you can usually find 2 or 3 families with a gazebo and camping chairs on the village green drinking prosecco. People quickly join in. Bank Holiday weekend it was quite literally an in-promptu and unplanned garden party for the whole village. People bringing food out for everyone to share, firepits music. Even in the rain, we often go out and share each others company.

CON - No village hall or similar communal space for children (although there is a well equipped park). It could be said there is "nothing for kids to do", but:

PRO

• Really safe, plenty of off road green space to ride bikes, scooter, play.
• Children all play together in multi-age groups.
• The multi-age play means the children teach each other social skills. Older ones resolve spats with younger children. Younger children fetch adults if older ones raise voices. Older children actively teach younger ones (football, den building, bike riding, stunt scooter skills)
• At any given time, there are always at least a couple of public-space dens being built or improved on by the village children.
• There are about 6 football goals scattered around the green space (that parents bought but all share). Kids, teens and adults all play in them.
• Lots of parents and adults within easy reach, even if you can't be there in the moment your child needs an adult.
• If they fall out with one person, plenty of others to play with. But fall outs generally resolve themselves quickly - the skills of managing social situations is an important skill they learn when playing "as a village" in multi-age groups.

Re school

No primary or secondary in ours. But our local county council puts a free bus on from our village to the catchment primary and secondary.

Very few public transport buses from the village tho. One which goes hourly to the nearest city, another hourly to biggest town (opp direction to city) and then the village bus which connects to local small town which is every 30 minutes. To get most places you have to first get a bus to the city, then out of the City to where you want to go.

We considered this last year and to be honest it’s still not totally off the table but it won’t happen for a few years.
our pros were: lots more outside space, quiet, close community, driveway big enough for all our cars, bigger house, lots of walkable green space and a pub within walking distance!
our cons: too far from ageing parents to just stop by on the way somewhere. Shit transport options other than us dedicating ourselves to be drivers for ds until he drives (older dds both drive and have cars now), ds not being able to walk himself to his school and needing driving there and back every day, community is close but not as friendly to ‘outsiders’, local shop has very local opening hours 😂
Basically we have ruled it out until ds can drive and has left school. We would absolutely love to have more outside space even though we have a really good sized garden now, we are overlooked by our immediate neighbours. We’d prefer somewhere a bit more rural, we love our house here and have totally transformed it to be exactly as we want it but there’s no getting away from the fact that it’s on a busy road and we would just like more peace.

Depends on the village. Some are virtually empty during the day as the residents have all commuted to work elsewhere. They have to to afford the hefty mortgage that tends to come with village living. Some villages have a great community spirit and welcome newcomers, others not so much. Spend as much time as you can there and at different times of day to get a feel for the place.
If you're buying based on the rural location or the view, be prepared that you might eventually be swamped by new builds as attractive villages are often also attractive to developers. My home village (which I've not been able to afford to buy in for the last 20 years) has doubled in size in the last few years due to huge developments, and the glorious green fields that were behind my parents' home are now a sea of red brick and cars.
You also need a car to live rurally as bus services are inevitably shit.

It depends on the facilities of course, but for us village life was great with primary school aged kids but very limiting with secondary school kids. For context our village lost its bus route, and had literally nothing apart from primary school, nursery, chip shop and post office.

We recognised by the time our eldest was 10 that it was really going to limit their opportunities for independence, so we opted to move to a town with things in walking/biking distance and good bus routes.

It wasn't ideal moving my eldest who was sad to leave (although is beginning to see the benefits now), so I would think about how the village would work when your kids are teenagers, as well as small, to avoid needing to move if you can.

I think it depends on the type of village.

I absolutely love our village. There’s about 2700 people so it’s not tiny but doesn’t feel big either.

There is a lovely pre-school and primary school, post office, shop open 7am-10pm daily, butchers and a nice take away place.

People will say hello if you go for a walk and it’s very pretty.

The village also does really nice community events throughout the year on the playing field. Love the sense of community.

We moved from a big city to the countryside when children were very young. We opted for a town that had some amenities rather than nothing. We foolishly assumed that within time it would build up, it did with houses but not with shops etc.

The schools became impossible to get in to, having to put their names down while pregnant! Then the distance of the schools was a pain after a few years, you could walk it in 45 minutes or sit in traffic for up to 30 mins. As the children got older, the finishing times was different for each, meaning a good few school runs, dropping some off earlier so as to make it in time for another school.

You do become a taxi, you have to plan everything down to the last detail, if they have friends the other side of the town you have to be on call to bring and pick up. There's very little activities and the things that are on have big waiting lists or the times clash with something else.

Everyone knows your business, I do be shocked at how much people know, I always considered myself a private person and keep to myself but everyone talks about each other.

Our nearest hospital is 2 hours away, that's the biggest pain. You may think you won't need hospitals but you never know.

If your car breaks down the public transport needs to be good, we've a bus on the hour and 9 times out of 10 they're full so pass you by.

If we want a mcdonald's we have to travel up to an hour. There's one Chinese which is rubbish and takes up to 2 hours to deliver. There's lots of pubs but people have their own seats, if you do venture out you have to walk home or not drink because there's no taxis.

When people visit they can only stay a few hours as the drive is long home, there's no hotels etc or you put them up. Inviting people to dinner is an all day thing.

That's my experience and everyone's is different but if I could choose, I'd choose city living, everything so handy. My kids are grown now but I'm still bringing them around.

I grew up very rurally. I had to get the bus 15 minutes to primary school and then 40 minutes to secondary. This was a council school bus.

It was a pain. I didn’t have any friends in the village. I remember reading stories with one child knocking and seeing if another want to come out and play and thinking that seemed magical. All events had to be planned in advance. Our primary school covered a wide area some of my friends live 15 miles away. In secondary school some were even further.

We poss live in a smaller place than some people on this thread - there’s about 25 houses / farms. It’s very insular. Our nearest small village is 10 mins away and I can imagine would be similar to how you describe with people not knowing everyone’s names.

I live somewhere similar. When we moved here there was a village shop and a infrequent but reliable bus service. Both have gone in the past couple of years. Rural services are diminishing rapidly everywhere. Think about the miles you'll have to drive for the next 18 years! Think about different after school activities and friends to play. Think about the walk back from town when the kids are teenagers-is it safe or will you have to pick them up from parties at 2 in the morning or end up forking out megabucks in taxis throughout the teen years? We love where we live-and we're through the child/teen years now and it's blissful. But oh, it was hard work for a lot of years!

I grew up in a similar situation and wouldn’t - it looks lovely but you will be a prisoner of your car and a taxi service from toddlers to teens.

Move to the edge of a nice market town - best of both worlds.

I'm not anti villages at all but set the criteria that it had to have a pub, a shop and a community hall and be no more than 10 mins drive to somewhere much much bigger- at least a small town

We live in a tiny village 1 mile from a slightly bigger village with a primary school and we're about a 15 minute drive from the nearest market town. I wouldn't change it, it's safe for the kids, lovely small school, fabulous community and it's peaceful.

I grew up in a village, left as soon as I could and would never ever move back. Boring, parochial, I hated everyone knowing everyone else, school was too small, no buses, nothing to do other than inappropriate under age stuff. Couldn't stand it and purposely had a child when living in a city so she wouldn't have to suffer it. So bloody boring!!!!

My parents are fairly rural. They love it but I could not be doing with getting in the car every single time you leave the house. Think about the logistics of school runs / availability of wraparound care. I got a coach to secondary school but that meant I couldn't do any after school clubs unless my parents were happy to pick me up.

I grew up in a village too. Beautiful and ok for very young children. I would never subject my own children to it though. As an older child/teen it really restricted my independence and enjoyment of life.

Also, a thing to watch out for is that up to half the people living there are somehow all related.

Not a village, but I grew up in Hoylake. 4 old families that had been fishermen. My late mother put her foot in it a few times, getting the - oh he's my cousin's sister's brother-in-law type of thing. Cross the Birds or the Parrys at your peril - 2 of the names I can remember. Nice people, but related to everyone.

I used to live a mile out of a beautiful village which had a primary school, pub and shop. We were quite quiet but everyone knew our business anyway, which I found hard. On our moving on day, a local lady knocked on the door and already knew our professions!

Pros - very beautiful, peaceful, views.

Cons - gossipy, drive to get anywhere, long commute to work (before wfh options).

It worked when we commuted to our jobs. When I went on maternity leave, I tried to engage with local baby groups and found it v cliquey with mums who had grown up in the village.

We decided it wouldn't work for us with children plus long commute and moved to the small city where we both worked and we're still here 12 years on.

So not for us! But miss the peace, space and views.

I live rurally my village has a population of 160 people we do have a small community shop, village hall and tiny school our nearest small town is 20 mins away and our nearest major city is 2 hours away. We are lucky in the fact the the number of second homes here has declined (you can look this up on the census data). I think a lot depends on you and your family. I just love rural living, if I never went near a city again I wouldn’t mind I’m surrounded by stunning views/wildlife and most importantly peace and quiet nothing would get me out of here. Ok people do know your business but we have a surprising number of activities organised in the village and people rally round and help each other. But my friend who also lives here has two children one approaching secondary school age she loves it here but is toying with the idea of moving to our nearest town (population just under 3000 so not exactly large) because she thinks it will be better for her children as they get older, more to do, more independence, marginally better public transport especially to our regional town (again not exactly a metropolis but it does have a somewhat erratic train service).
I have friends to stay most love it as a place to visit but the majority comment that they couldn’t live permanently in such a remote rural location especially in the winter liking my small town better.

On our moving on day, a local lady knocked on the door and already knew our professions

I can relate to that. I knew my new next door neighbours’ professions, where they worked, where they had come from, and how old their child was before they had actually moved in.

I grew up in a village, moved to bigger towns and cities for work when I was younger but moved back to a village as soon as I could. It suits me.

You become very car dependent.

however, there are so many food and shipping deliveries these days so it’s not as bad as it used to be.

Personally the pros outweigh the cons for me. But I would be happy living rurally NOT in a village myself.