Bear Inn, Bisley

As of 10/11/2023 the Bear has re-opened with new tenants. Stroud CAMRA has updated what we know but have yet to survey the premises so the data recorded for this pub may be inaccurate in some areas.

The Bear Inn is a venerable sixteenth-century building that was originally the village courthouse and assembly room. The open stone jail cells are still in place a few yards from the pub, down the hill on the left. It was first recorded as a pub in 1631 and has been in business ever since. Bisley once boasted nine pubs. There are only two left.

At the front of the pub is striking colonnaded loggia and the interior oozes the atmosphere and character of a bygone age—exposed beams and stonework and two huge fireplaces.

Jilly Cooper still lives in the village and the Bear is her local. ‘I have a theory that the secret of marital happiness is simple,’ she wrote in 2002. ‘Drink in different pubs to your other half. The Bear is the crème de la crème pub that everybody goes to in my village, but my [late] husband Leo goes to the rival pub, the Stirrup—the hunt meets there each Saturday before the off. Leo feels lost without his regular haunt. A pub is almost like a lover and he would feel terribly guilty if he was being unfaithful and was forced to enter the Bear. The Stirrup's Leo's and the Bear's mine.’

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2002/apr/14/foodanddrink.features4