BISLEY TODAY
Bisley is a small, pretty, and very friendly village in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds, ten minutes from Stroud (of which, more below) and roughly twenty minutes from Cheltenham, Cirencester (named the best place to live in the South West by The Times in March 2023 - see the screenshot further down), and Gloucester (expand the map at the bottom of the page).
You can see some photographs of the village and the surrounding countryside on this page of our website. There are more pictures of the village on this outside website, and photos (including fascinating historical images) are often posted on the Bisley History Group's Facebook page.
We're fortunate to live in a Conservation Area (click through for a .pdf) within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty - the largest in England - and this is reflected in the traditional stonework which makes up many of our homes and other buildings, and in the rolling, forested hills and flower-strewn valleys nearby.
We're regularly named in lists such as ‘Ten Stunning Villages to Visit in the South Cotswolds' and ‘Ten Best Places to Live in the Cotswolds', but we're a bit of a secret and (as the first article says) we're not really on the tourist trail.
We have two pubs, a post office and store (as of August 2024 the store is currently and, we hope, temporarily closed, but Granny Dotty's Deli at The Bear and the Farm Shop have stepped into the breach), two churches (C of E and Roman Catholic), a primary school, a village hall with regular events, an ancient and famous annual flower show and fête, various b&bs (see ‘BISLEY HOLIDAYS' on the menu above), and a thriving social scene. (We also had an outdoor music festival until coronavirus intervened - we hope it will be back one day.) Superman lives on the edge of the village; a world-famous novelist lives just below the Wells.
It's a walker's paradise, and a great base for a weekend of rambling or exploring the Cotswolds. The Wysis Way, which connects Offa’s Dyke Path at Monmouth to the start of the Thames Path at Kemble, runs through the village, and the Cotswolds Way passes by a few miles away.
There are innumerable other smaller walks, many of them taking you conveniently close to pubs in some of the many lovely nearby villages. (It's also a great place to cycle, though the hills can be punishing. Electric bikes solve that, of course.)
Here's a rough guide to the route the Wysis Way follows as it comes through the village from Sapperton to the south-east and heads north-west towards Painswick, a distance of eight to ten miles - as you can see, it takes you near many of the other villages mentioned on the PUBS tab above, too:
You can see some photographs of the village and the surrounding countryside on this page of our website. There are more pictures of the village on this outside website, and photos (including fascinating historical images) are often posted on the Bisley History Group's Facebook page.
We're fortunate to live in a Conservation Area (click through for a .pdf) within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty - the largest in England - and this is reflected in the traditional stonework which makes up many of our homes and other buildings, and in the rolling, forested hills and flower-strewn valleys nearby.
We're regularly named in lists such as ‘Ten Stunning Villages to Visit in the South Cotswolds' and ‘Ten Best Places to Live in the Cotswolds', but we're a bit of a secret and (as the first article says) we're not really on the tourist trail.
We have two pubs, a post office and store (as of August 2024 the store is currently and, we hope, temporarily closed, but Granny Dotty's Deli at The Bear and the Farm Shop have stepped into the breach), two churches (C of E and Roman Catholic), a primary school, a village hall with regular events, an ancient and famous annual flower show and fête, various b&bs (see ‘BISLEY HOLIDAYS' on the menu above), and a thriving social scene. (We also had an outdoor music festival until coronavirus intervened - we hope it will be back one day.) Superman lives on the edge of the village; a world-famous novelist lives just below the Wells.
It's a walker's paradise, and a great base for a weekend of rambling or exploring the Cotswolds. The Wysis Way, which connects Offa’s Dyke Path at Monmouth to the start of the Thames Path at Kemble, runs through the village, and the Cotswolds Way passes by a few miles away.
There are innumerable other smaller walks, many of them taking you conveniently close to pubs in some of the many lovely nearby villages. (It's also a great place to cycle, though the hills can be punishing. Electric bikes solve that, of course.)
Here's a rough guide to the route the Wysis Way follows as it comes through the village from Sapperton to the south-east and heads north-west towards Painswick, a distance of eight to ten miles - as you can see, it takes you near many of the other villages mentioned on the PUBS tab above, too:
And here's a random YouTube video put together by a chap who walked round and through the village in the autumn of 2023:
Bisley is a fantastic place to live and raise a family - there's a nice mix of local people born and raised here (some villagers have had family here since the days of Henry VIII) and incomers, but none of the division that this can sometimes bring.
There is virtually no crime (other than against fashion), there are lots of clubs and societies in the area, and we have exceptional local schools; one of the best state schools in the country, Pate's, is just up the road in Cheltenham, and there are adjoining boys' and girls' state grammar schools five miles away in Stroud (and others, all catchment-free, elsewhere in Gloucestershire), as well as the popular and very good Thomas Keble Academy two miles away in Eastcombe, and Deer Park in Cirencester, both of which produce excellent results and are ranked highly by OFSTED.
All regularly send pupils to Oxford, Cambridge, and Britain's other leading universities.
There are also excellent private schools nearby, Cheltenham College and Cheltenham Ladies' College among them.
From a commuting point of view, if you're working further afield than Stroud, Ciren, or Cheltenham, we're roughly an hour from Bath, Bristol, and Oxford; Birmingham is 90 minutes away, as is London Paddington via the quick train from Stroud.
If you plan to move here and work from home you'll be glad to hear that we have hyperfast (900 mbps) fibre broadband in the village, currently available via Gigaclear. Reasonably quick standard internet is also available from BT, but it's old-fashioned copper, and once you're any distance from the exchange in the centre of the village it's not really suitable for seriously large files or Zoom etc.
Of course, Gigaclear lure you in with cheap initial deals which then rise to c£50pcm, but BT has announced that it's bringing its own fibre to the village in the next year or two, and the competition should result in lower prices.
Stroud
The trouble - if you fancy moving to Bisley - is that houses don't appear on the market very often, and when they do they can be expensive and often sell very quickly.
The same is true of other nearby villages, but Stroud - our nearest town - is definitely worth thinking of. It has lots of quirky independent shops, some good pubs (The Ale House, The Retreat, and The Prince Albert are probably the pick), a pretty good indoor market with a decent butcher and fishmonger and a variety of interesting little stalls, The Shambles, and a renowned Saturday farmers' market (named one of the seven best farmers' markets in the UK by The Times in March 2023:
There is virtually no crime (other than against fashion), there are lots of clubs and societies in the area, and we have exceptional local schools; one of the best state schools in the country, Pate's, is just up the road in Cheltenham, and there are adjoining boys' and girls' state grammar schools five miles away in Stroud (and others, all catchment-free, elsewhere in Gloucestershire), as well as the popular and very good Thomas Keble Academy two miles away in Eastcombe, and Deer Park in Cirencester, both of which produce excellent results and are ranked highly by OFSTED.
All regularly send pupils to Oxford, Cambridge, and Britain's other leading universities.
There are also excellent private schools nearby, Cheltenham College and Cheltenham Ladies' College among them.
From a commuting point of view, if you're working further afield than Stroud, Ciren, or Cheltenham, we're roughly an hour from Bath, Bristol, and Oxford; Birmingham is 90 minutes away, as is London Paddington via the quick train from Stroud.
If you plan to move here and work from home you'll be glad to hear that we have hyperfast (900 mbps) fibre broadband in the village, currently available via Gigaclear. Reasonably quick standard internet is also available from BT, but it's old-fashioned copper, and once you're any distance from the exchange in the centre of the village it's not really suitable for seriously large files or Zoom etc.
Of course, Gigaclear lure you in with cheap initial deals which then rise to c£50pcm, but BT has announced that it's bringing its own fibre to the village in the next year or two, and the competition should result in lower prices.
Stroud
The trouble - if you fancy moving to Bisley - is that houses don't appear on the market very often, and when they do they can be expensive and often sell very quickly.
The same is true of other nearby villages, but Stroud - our nearest town - is definitely worth thinking of. It has lots of quirky independent shops, some good pubs (The Ale House, The Retreat, and The Prince Albert are probably the pick), a pretty good indoor market with a decent butcher and fishmonger and a variety of interesting little stalls, The Shambles, and a renowned Saturday farmers' market (named one of the seven best farmers' markets in the UK by The Times in March 2023:
There are a couple of huge commons on the hills overlooking the town, a small theatre (The Cotswold Playhouse), a Vue cinema, an annual art trail round the town and surrounding villages, and live music at The Sub Rooms, The Prince Albert and The Goods Shed.
It has often been named as the best place in the country in which to live, most recently in 2021* (by The Sunday Times); we're not aware of the ‘array of Michelin starred restaurants' mentioned by Country Living (though the Michelin Guide lists a number of restaurants in Cheltenham), but there are one or two decent curry houses, The Retreat, Curio Lounge, Simpson's award-winning chippy, Fat Toni's pizza place, and the famous Woodruffs Organic Café. Dan Chadwick, who owns the wonderful Woolpack at Slad has recently opened Juliet in town.
(*In April 2022, Stroud was named one of the eight runners-up in the South West regional section of the same competition.)
Back to Bisley - here's a nice drone video of the village, filmed by Michael Whitestone Photography:
It has often been named as the best place in the country in which to live, most recently in 2021* (by The Sunday Times); we're not aware of the ‘array of Michelin starred restaurants' mentioned by Country Living (though the Michelin Guide lists a number of restaurants in Cheltenham), but there are one or two decent curry houses, The Retreat, Curio Lounge, Simpson's award-winning chippy, Fat Toni's pizza place, and the famous Woodruffs Organic Café. Dan Chadwick, who owns the wonderful Woolpack at Slad has recently opened Juliet in town.
(*In April 2022, Stroud was named one of the eight runners-up in the South West regional section of the same competition.)
Back to Bisley - here's a nice drone video of the village, filmed by Michael Whitestone Photography:
Cirencester, as seen by The Times: