Bisley, Gloucestershire

Bisley is a village in Gloucestershire, England, approximately 4 miles east of Stroud. The parish is today united administratively with the adjoining parish of Lypiatt and the two are usually referred to as Bisley-with-Lypiatt. The manor was formerly extensive, including the villages of Stroud and Chalford, as well as Thrupp, Oakridge, Bussage, Througham and Eastcombe.

History and Architecture
The area is noted for the wealth of its Cotswold stone houses of architectural and historic interest. They include Lypiatt Park, formerly the home of Judge H.B.D. Woodcock and then of the late Modernist sculptor Lynn Chadwick; Nether Lypiatt Manor, formerly the home of Violet Gordon-Woodhouse and Prince and Princess Michael of Kent ; Daneway (near Sapperton, but within the parish of Bisley); Over Court; Througham Court (repaired in 1929 for the novelist Sir Michael Sadleir by Norman Jewson) ; and Jaynes Court, formerly the home of Simon Charles Henry Rufus Isaacs, 4th Marquess of Reading (b. 1942). The village prison, which had originally been located in the Church yard, was replaced in 1824 by a two-cell lock-up where drunks were kept overnight, and petty criminals were detained before appearing before the Magistrate. This was often followed by a spell in the stocks or pillory. This building still stands, minus its heavy oak doors.

Notable residents
Bisley since 1982 has been the home of Jilly Cooper, one of England's most popular and prolific contemporary novelists, and her husband, Leo.