A Hundred Years Behind the Times: The History of Bisley in Surrey - Hardcover

Packed with fascinating and enthralling historical information,this book shows how the village of Bisley in Surrey has been endowed with a remarkably long and eventful history, all the more surprising for it remains one of the smallest civil parishes in the county. Each chapter covers a specific aspect of the village in a way that the reader will find so much more absorbing than a chronological series of events. Who can fail to be allured by the tale of Bisley Detached, for example, (which is completely isolated from the rest of the village), or the inside-out building, the Grade Two Listed hole in the ground, the witchcraft trial, or the bird bath used at baptisms? Some of the village folk are no less interesting: The miscreants, benefactors, indolent, hard-working and the poverty-stricken their stories are all here. Even the title of the book is taken from a chapter which records that this disparaging epithet was made on more than one occasion.

Tim Price has lived in Bisley virtually all his life and from an early age showed a keen interest in local affairs and the natural sciences. His training and background included botany, etomology and heathland ecology but he decided to embark upon a career in industry. He became the general manager of an engineering design company within a multi-national oil group before changing course mid-way through his career to join the public sector as a local government officer. Developing his enthusiasm for nature, some of Tim s spare time is engaged in practical conservation and tutoring students undertaking undergraduate and post-graduate research on lowland heaths. Meanwhile his boyhood interest in local history has continued to grow, and much of the information contained in this book has been complied from material accumulated over a period of more than half a century.