Writing in 1932, Victor Strode Manley, as part of his Regional Survey Of Warminster And District, wrote the following notes concerning Maiden Bradley:
The Priory Farm – “in the valley, a little to the North East [of Maiden Bradley village] are the remains of a leper hospital, or lazar house, founded towards the end of the 12th century by one of the heiresses of Mauser Bisset, “dapifer’ of Henry II. The story is that she herself was a leper, and Leland has it so, while Camden writes: “She, being herself a maiden infected with the leprosie, founded an house heere for maidens that were lepers and endowed the Same with her own Patrimonie and Livetide.”
Against this alleged personal taint we have recorded fact that Margaret Bisset, presumably the lady in question, obtained permission in 1237 to visit Eleanor of Brittany, the King’s cousin, and a Patent Roll entry of 1242 states that “at the petition of Margery Biss Byset the King has granted to the house of St. Matthew, Bradeleg, and infirm sisters thereof, for ever, five marks yearly . . . . which he had granted to the said Margery for life.’
A contemporary deed among the Sarum documents sets forth how Margaret Bisset, desiring to lead a celibate and contemplative life, left her lands to the leper hospital of Maiden Bradley on condition that she herself was maintained there. There was a prior assisted by secular priests, and afterwards a monastery of Augustine monks. The leprosy could hardly have been of the very serious malady usually so termed if the statement that the leprous women and their prior used to hold a weekly market and an annual fair is to be taken as literally correct, and the fact that a favourite spot commanding a beautiful view, and called Kate’s Bench or Gate Bench, is said to have been a place of resort for the “leprous maidens,” seems to support this idea.” – (Heath).