The district also includes the towns of Berkeley, Dursley, Nailsworth, Stonehouse and Wotton-under-Edge, along with numerous villages and surrounding rural areas.

[2] The neighbouring districts are Forest of Dean, Tewkesbury, Gloucester, Cotswold and South Gloucestershire.

The area is rich in Iron Age and Roman remnants and is of particular interest to archaeologists for its Neolithic burial grounds, of which there are over a hundred.

Much of its wealth was built on the cloth industry during the Victorian era, and its many mills, most of which are now listed buildings, survive as testament to this.

[8] The whole district is also covered by civil parishes, which form a third tier of local government.

[29] Margaret Hills (née Robertson) was the first woman elected to Stroud Urban District Council in 1928.

[33] Tom Levitt is also a former member and served for a short time before moving to High Peak in the early 1990s.