wanting to buy a small house in rural Northumberland.

Warkworth floods quite badly; it is one of my favourite places though. Had the walk in centre at Alnwick closed as well the S.O. would now still be sitting in A&E somewhere [sliced his finger open whilst gardening].

Are you familiar with Whitfield Tricia between Hexham and Alston? The drive through there is stunning. Certainly out of the way if that's what you want.
Allendale a Town is another suggestion!

Interesting, Tegan. I thought Warkworth had had floodgates and a wall erected.
Don't they work?
Hope the Hermitage is okay.

My husband used to go fishing there when he was a schoolchild. Hope your S.O.'s finger is okay. Gets him out of gardening, I hope.

Has that been done recently? I do hope so. I love the place. We always park by the river and have a cup of tea there, before walking down to the hermitage. I've never been to that as I'm scared of getting in and out of the boat with my dodgy knees!To me Warkworth is The Wind in the Willows country and I'm sure Mr Toad and his pals reside there. Several times we've seen photos of Warkworth in flood and realised we'd been sitting on the exact spot just a week or so before. It's fascinating walking up the middle of the town and seeing the old gardens; I'm sure the layout is medieval.

The wall was done in 2013, but I think they were given more money last year to complete the floodworks.
I wonder if they could sort the Coquet out further up the valley. Morpeth seems okay now (hope I haven't jinxed it).

Of course, if you lived up near the castle there would be no problem.

Tricia, Tegan has a good point there.
Make sure you look at the environment agency flood maps.

I love Embleton Church...

I hope I eventually manage to realise my "dream".
I've been to Warkworth a few times, but only to look round the castle, not the rest of the village.
My Dad had an interest in local history and especially the many castles in Northumberland.
Another thing that prompted my question was a tv programme last week, Escape to the Country, which was supposed to be about Northumberland, but 2 of the 3 houses were over the Border, only a house in a holiday complex in Northd. Their budget was 200k, the same as ours. It was disappointing.
The area I know best is around Otterburn, where I have a farmer cousin, we spent many holidays on the farm, but it's rather bleak there.

I don't live in Northumberland but do love property threads and Rightmove! So just poking my nose in here.

Tricia may I ask why you want to live out in the country, rather than say a village or town? I can understand the desire for peace and quiet, especially if used to it, but many country folk seem not to want to be so isolated in older age.

(Rothbury looks nice!)

Hi Tricia, I live in Amble, I have lived in Warkworth, worked and went to school in Alnwick.
pros. Northumberland IS beautiful, there are some great villages with good access, GP surgeries and shopping, the cost of living is less than down south and you will be able to get a property for the £200.000 mark
cons. we get about two weeks worth of summer, we don't get lots of snow in the winter but plenty slush and rain. I have arthritis and have a hankering to move to the sun !!! to be really rural can also mean becoming isolated as we get older
so for a happy medium, check out hoopla/rightmove in areas such as Rothbury (and no, we don't get flooded that often), Wooler, Belford, Longhoughton.
Villages such as Bamburgh, Alnmouth and Warkworth can be exceedingly expensive and as you don't wish for a larger town I have deliberately missed out Alnwick, Morpeth and Amble (as lovely as they are) have fun searching xx Karen

meant to say Zoopla, not hoopla ha ha

Thanks again. I'm beginning to come round to living in a small town, because driving will soon be a problem. And maybe we couldn't put up with the short summers and cold winters as we could 10-20 years ago.
As I wrote before , I do know Rothbury a bit, from childhood. That could be a good place to start.
Anyway that's enough of me! I hope the thread has helped other people too - in deciding what are the priorities of where to live in old age.
We would have preferred to live near eldest daughter, Berkshire, but that's far too expensive for us. My sister lives in Edinburgh.

Longhoughton will have a lot of cheaper properties coming onto the market with the RAF [or is it Army?] base closing there. And it's quite close to some nice beaches as well.