The Mount Pleasant, on the junction of St Whites Road and Mount Pleasant Road, is situated on elevated land to the south of Cinderford with fine aspects over the Soudley Valley, into the Forest of Dean and onwards towards the Welsh mountains. The panoramic views are not necessarily enjoyed from the bar and ground floor of the pub, however, as the sightings are more likely to be of queuing traffic on the B4226.
In 1888 the ‘fully licensed inn’ consisted of a ‘bar, bar parlour, kitchen, back kitchen, pantry, two underground cellars, club room, two bedrooms, dressing room and store room, coach-house, three stall stable, piggeries and garden’. Together with two adjoining cottages and associated land the Mount Pleasant Inn was valued at £820.
The Mount Pleasant Inn was once a Forest Brewery house. Francis Wintle owned the property in 1891 and 1903 when the annual rateable value of the alehouse was set at £20.0s.0d. (11 pm closing time).
In 1923 when the Forest Brewery put their pub estate on the property market the Mount Pleasant had a ‘serving bar, smoke room, sitting room, beer store and kitchen’ on the ground floor. There were five bedrooms and a box room upstairs. To the outside there was a ‘old range of stabling, two pig cots, urinal, closet and small strip of garden’.
The present pub sign depicts a huntswoman, resplendent in black jacket, jodhpurs and boots sitting astride a horse – a brewery artist interpretation of the name Mount Pleasant.
A West Country Ales ‘Best in the West’ ceramic plaque still in situ.
Landlords at the Mount Pleasant Inn include:
1891 Elijah Mountjoy
1902,1903,1906 Mrs Joyce Mountjoy (Joych in 1902, Joyeh in 1903)
1919 Daniel Prosser
1927 Frank Cresswell
1939 D.J. Negrin
1967 Mr W.J. Beatty
1979-1989 Alvin and Cissie Beard (previously at the George in Littledean)
1999 Santokh Singh
2000 Lynn and Richard ?