BISLEY TODAY
Overcourt, one of Bisley's many lovely houses, is at the centre of the 'Bisley Boy' legend. In 1542, Henry VIII travelled with a large retinue including the young Princess Elizabeth to the village to escape an outbreak of plague in London. They stayed at Overcourt; legend has it that Elizabeth died of fever while Henry was on a hunting trip, and that his terrified aides replaced her - in the absence of a suitable local girl - with a young redheaded boy.
This supposedly explains the fact that Elizabeth never married, and never allowed a doctor to examine her.
Bisley is a small, pretty, and very friendly village in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds.
It's ten minutes from Stroud (named by the Sunday Times in January 2025 as the third-best place to live in England, and of which more below) and roughly twenty minutes from Cheltenham (named second-best in the Times piece), and Cirencester (named the best place to live in the South West by The Times in March 2023 - see the screenshot further down). Gloucester is roughly half an hour (expand the map at the foot of the page).
From a commuting point of view, if you work further afield, we're roughly an hour from Bath and Bristol; Oxford, Birmingham, and Cardiff are each around 90 minutes away (less if the traffic is good), as is London Paddington via the quick train from Stroud.
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 England's largest ‘National Landscape' (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty as-was) - the largest in England - and this is reflected in the ancient 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, though The Stirrup Cup is temporarily closed, and will need someone with deep pockets prepared to pay the absurd £33,000 per year rent just to open the doors and pay the equally absurd tied beer prices charged by the landlords, Stonegate, under the terms of their lease. With staff costs and utilities the annual overheads must be well over £100,000 pa, and probably nearer to £150,000. It is extremely hard to make a profit out of running a pub these days.
We also have a very good Farm Shop, two churches (C of E and Roman Catholic, though the latter is rarely used), a primary school, a village hall with regular events, a very long-established and famous annual flower show and fête, various b&bs (click B&B on the menu above), and a thriving social scene. We also have a small annual music festival - it started in 2019, was interrupted by the Covid farrago, but is now back. It features five or six live bands, real ales, street food, and takes place on August Bank Holiday Sunday in and around the flower show marquee.
Superman lives on the edge of the village; a world-famous novelist lived here for many years, just below the Wells, until she died in October 2025. Two famous Hollywood directors live at The Scrubs, half a mile away.
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.)
Below is 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 Sheepscombe and 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:
It's ten minutes from Stroud (named by the Sunday Times in January 2025 as the third-best place to live in England, and of which more below) and roughly twenty minutes from Cheltenham (named second-best in the Times piece), and Cirencester (named the best place to live in the South West by The Times in March 2023 - see the screenshot further down). Gloucester is roughly half an hour (expand the map at the foot of the page).
From a commuting point of view, if you work further afield, we're roughly an hour from Bath and Bristol; Oxford, Birmingham, and Cardiff are each around 90 minutes away (less if the traffic is good), as is London Paddington via the quick train from Stroud.
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 England's largest ‘National Landscape' (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty as-was) - the largest in England - and this is reflected in the ancient 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, though The Stirrup Cup is temporarily closed, and will need someone with deep pockets prepared to pay the absurd £33,000 per year rent just to open the doors and pay the equally absurd tied beer prices charged by the landlords, Stonegate, under the terms of their lease. With staff costs and utilities the annual overheads must be well over £100,000 pa, and probably nearer to £150,000. It is extremely hard to make a profit out of running a pub these days.
We also have a very good Farm Shop, two churches (C of E and Roman Catholic, though the latter is rarely used), a primary school, a village hall with regular events, a very long-established and famous annual flower show and fête, various b&bs (click B&B on the menu above), and a thriving social scene. We also have a small annual music festival - it started in 2019, was interrupted by the Covid farrago, but is now back. It features five or six live bands, real ales, street food, and takes place on August Bank Holiday Sunday in and around the flower show marquee.
Superman lives on the edge of the village; a world-famous novelist lived here for many years, just below the Wells, until she died in October 2025. Two famous Hollywood directors live at The Scrubs, half a mile away.
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.)
Below is 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 Sheepscombe and 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:
The Wysis Way section through Bisley
Here's a random YouTube video put together by a chap who walked round and through the village in the autumn of 2023:
And here's a nice drone video of the village, filmed by Michael Whitestone Photography:
Bisley is the perfect place to live and raise a family - there's a nice mix of locals (some villagers can trace their family roots here back to 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, in which respect there are multiple repeat offenders), 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. (Keble College, Oxford, is named after John Keble, brother of Thomas, a long-time nineteenth century vicar of Bisley; Thomas Keble School, above, is obviously named after the vicar. Going back many years, Bisley was a source of high quality limestone, and stone from the village was used in the construction and renovation of a number of Oxford colleges.)
There are also excellent private schools nearby, Cheltenham College and Cheltenham Ladies' College among them.
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 and a number of partner companies. 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.
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, in which respect there are multiple repeat offenders), 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. (Keble College, Oxford, is named after John Keble, brother of Thomas, a long-time nineteenth century vicar of Bisley; Thomas Keble School, above, is obviously named after the vicar. Going back many years, Bisley was a source of high quality limestone, and stone from the village was used in the construction and renovation of a number of Oxford colleges.)
There are also excellent private schools nearby, Cheltenham College and Cheltenham Ladies' College among them.
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 and a number of partner companies. 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.
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 is always appearing in ‘best-place in the country in which to live'-type contests (in 2021 it was named the best by The Sunday Times); I haven't come across 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 Corner House, 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. It got a very good review in The Guardian in January 2025, and another in The Times in September 2025 (screenshot below).
All in all, it's a nice, neighbourly town, which operates at a relaxed pace.
It is always appearing in ‘best-place in the country in which to live'-type contests (in 2021 it was named the best by The Sunday Times); I haven't come across 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 Corner House, 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. It got a very good review in The Guardian in January 2025, and another in The Times in September 2025 (screenshot below).
All in all, it's a nice, neighbourly town, which operates at a relaxed pace.
Cirencester, as seen by The Times:
