I am a grumpy French person not from the Limousin, who happens to drive through every so often. There is a huge amount of stuff online but I’m not sure how many people here actually live in Limousin. I live 155km south of Limoges and the prevailing winds are from the west so I don’t feel I need an NBC suit to go outside. I believe you can get a Geiger counter quite cheaply nowadays 
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We lived in a village in the Limousin, about 30 miles north of Limoges, which had a closed down uranium mine right on the edge of it. The mine was finished and was being left to fill up with water, and the land surrounding it was being returned to it’s natural state. The village had benefitted greatly from the taxes paid by the mining company and had used the money to make lots of great improvements including mains drainage, underground electric cables, a fabulous new village hall and football pitch. The village’s water was supplied from a local spring and there was no contamination whatsoever from the mine. Nobody seemed to have suffered ill health because of it. We were made very welcome in the village and integrated well with the locals, joining the Comite des Fetes and helping to run the football team. The Limousin is a beautiful, very rural area.
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Beautiful and warm in the summer but very wet in the spring and autumn and freezing during the interminable winter… as well as being a long long est from anywhere. As elsewhere there are are always good reasons why property prices are lower than generally expected.
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I do not recognise your description of the weather/seasons. Perhaps you live in other parts of the Limousin. We are 45km north of Limoges, it is not particularly wet in the spring time, the summers are long, usually well into October. The autumn is mild and the merge into winter is hardly noticeable. Whilst winter can sometimes be cold it is not terribly so. The spring flowers are spouting and some are even in bud and some in flower. I have not yet found a reason to move out of shorts, in fact the last time I wore a pair of trousers was last January and that was to go to a Michelin starred resto.
I do not quite get the comment about it being the “longest from anywhere”, three hours to Paris, four hours to Lyon, three hours to Toulouse and another couple to Spain and less that three hours to the coast. Seems pretty central. That apart, it is a beautiful area with low property prices and a low cost of living. I highly recommend it.
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Thank you Geoff. I was really wondering about other posts talking about it being wet and cold and miserable and miles from anywhere… Not what I’ve read about it anywhere else!
This is a good thread if you have not seen it already
I spent five months looking for a place to live in the Limousin. We visited a lot of places! We stayed in @Mark gite for part of that time, which is beautiful. It is close to Felletin which I really liked too.
It can rain more than other areas of France, but I think there have been bad droughts too in recent summers. To be honest the rain didn’t bother me, and where we were in the Creuse it didn’t seem to rain that much.
We also stayed in the Correze for a time. Again very beautiful. Maybe more rain there during that time.
Anyway it is more isolated than many other areas of France except if you are near a bigger town. Villages losing the only remaining shop or baker can happen anywhere in the countryside but it will hit harder if there is little else around.
I certainly don’t regret the time I spent there. The countryside is stunning and the people very friendly.
We moved to Saone et Loire in the end. Also a rural area but it does feel more connected and I am not sure that the property prices are that different if you take into account the amount of work required.
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Quite a number of people seem concerned about it being isolated. To us that’s a huge plus! We don’t want to be anywhere near noisy towns or shopping centres or hypermarchés. A little place with some land and trees at the end of a dirt track… that’s our idea of heaven 
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Then the Limousin is probably what you’re looking for (depending on what sort of climat you’re after, that is) 
Thats exactly what we’ve got. Come have a look when you can/if you’d like. Even in the Limousin they are a rare find these days.
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That’s very generous of you Mark. I’ll give you a shout closer to the time, lockdown dependant.
Thé Limousin area is vast and the climate on the west side where I lived is totally different to the east.
The climate close to the Charente /Hte Vienne borders is mild compared to somewhere like Aubusson or Ussel getting towards Clermont Ferrand.
Mind you Andrew, the climate differences between say, Lisle sur Tarn and Lacaune in the Tarn are like chalk and cheese too !
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Exactly, Peter, and it’s very hard giving any advise as what suits one person very nicely may be hell for somebody else : the summer heat here in the Tarn would kill off many living in Brittany but I couldn’t cope with the wet windy winters up there! Horses for courses
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Experience shows that you will probably need a generator/emergency means of electricity; 4-wheel drive vehicle; decent phone/internet connection… and good health.
With all that, relax and enjoy yourselves… 
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Don’t worry @Stella we lived in rural Africa for decades so that’s exactly what we are used to! Give me off-grid any time
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Great!
Mind you… I hope you will be making the effort to get out of your isolation, from time to time, and join-in with your local community.
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Yes of course. Living in an isolated place doesn’t mean you have to be a hermit!
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Ha ha… sadly, not all folk think like that… many do stay in their own little patch… mixing very rarely indeed.
(Many not mixing even rarely… they generally come out of hiding when they have a problem…)
I met a German for the first time this year, who has lived in our commune for years and years… nice chap… had a query…
solved his query… and he’s gone back to his property which is very isolated and which he loves very much…
Trouble is Andrew that even a department like Charente (16) is chalk and cheese from east to west. The climate in say, Cognac is very different to that in Confolens. So to recommend the 16 as a place to move to is tricky as things can change quickly depending on where you are.
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I always thought the big advertising board for a large, English-speaking estate agent whose name begins with an L that you see upon arriving at Limoges airport was an indicator that there were quite a few Brits looking to pick up a cheap bolthole in Limousin.
Talking of which, does anyone else enjoy watching their YouTube videos of properties they’re selling? I usually find estate agents in France to be awful, but the videos by these guys are very professionally done. Just wish I could afford some of the houses they have on their books.