The 1891 and 1903 Gloucestershire licensing books rather confusingly include the Royal Oak in the parish of Mitcheldean. The nearby Royal Foresters Inn, however, is listed as being in Cinderford. The annual rateable value in those late Victorian / early Edwardian times of the Royal Oak alehouse was £15.0s.0d. and it closed at 11 pm each night. The Royal Oak was owned by Wintles Forest Brewery.
When the tied houses of the Forest Brewery were put up for sale in 1923 the Royal Oak was described as ‘well placed to command a good-class trade.’ On the ground floor there was a bar, tap room, smoke room, beer store, kitchen, pot house, wine store, closet and urinal. Upstairs there were four living rooms and a club room. To the side of the Royal Oak there was a yard with a pair of folding gates, vegetable garden, pig cot and closet. At the rear there was a meadow of roughly about three acres and ‘rough range of stabling’.
The fifth edition of CAMRA’s ‘Real Ale in Gloucestershire’, published in 1980, lists the Royal Oak and describes it has having ‘lovely views over the valley’. Whitbread (West Country) PA was sold from hand pump. Real draught cider was also available.
The Citizen: Friday, 29th January 1982: End of the road for the Oak? – The Royal Oak Inn, one of Cinderford’s best known locals, closes its doors to customers tomorrow night and it is questionable whether the pub will ever re-open. Melvyn and Jean Baker, who have held the licence at the Oak for some years, have decided to quit the licensed trade and have got a Council home to move into at Denecroft. During their time at the public house, which is headquarters for a number of sporting and social organisations, the Bakers have helped organise many events to raise money for charity. The included Hilldene Athletic football club, which was formed and played during its early years on the Royal Oak ground, and the Old and Young Generation Committee.
Gloucestershire County Council has a scheme in a programme for major improvements to Littledean Hill Road, where the Royal Oak is situated, but have always contended there was no intention of acquiring the pub and demolishing it to make way for road improvements. However, with the Royal Foresters only a short distance away, the brewery may well decide not to re-open the Oak once it has closed. This would mean the Oak would go onto the open market for sale, and the County Council may take the opportunity to acquire it. A spokesman for the County Surveyor’s department said that a road widening scheme for Littledean Hill Road, had been in the capital programme for some time. It was now planned to carry out a scheme in 1984/5.
The Citizen: Friday, 29th January 1982: End of the road for the Oak? – The Royal Oak Inn, one of Cinderford’s best known locals, closes its doors to customers tomorrow night and it is questionable whether the pub will ever re-open. Melvyn and Jean Baker, who have held the licence at the Oak for some years, have decided to quit the licensed trade. During their time at the public house, which is headquarters for a number of sporting and social organisations, the Bakers have helped organise many events to raise money for charity.
Gloucestershire County Council has a scheme in a programme for major improvements to Littledean Hill Road, where the Royal Oak is situated, but have always contended there was no intention of acquiring the pub and demolishing it to make way for road improvements. However, with the Royal Foresters only a short distance away, the brewery may well decide not to re-open the Oak once it has closed. This would mean the Oak would go onto the open market for sale, and the County Council may take the opportunity to acquire it.
Glue sniffers were alleged to be using the empty premises of the Royal Oak in April 1983 which was of concern to the Mayor and other councillors in Cinderford.
The Citizen: Friday, 4th November 1983 – Oak to get the axe?: One of Cinderford’s worse eyesores may soon be demolished. Just over a year ago the Royal Oak in Littledean Hill closed its doors for the last time and since then the property has been empty. But with the passage of time windows have been broken, doors smashed in and the former public house is now in a dreadful condition. Local residents have complained about the condition of the building and Cinderford Town Council has taken up the complaints with the brewery. It now appears that the brewery is in the process of completing the negotiations for the sale of the property, and adjoining land, with a condition of sale that the building be demolished. In the meantime the brewery has promised the Town Council that it will be getting estimates for making the property secure.
A housing development called Oak Field in Littledean Hill Road gives an indication where the Royal Oak once was.
Landlords at the Royal Oak include:
1856 Herbert Williams
1863 Joseph Brain
1879 William Thomas
1881 Hubert Evans
1885,1888 George Gwinnell
1891 John Hatton
1901,1903 George Berrows (George was a county rugby player)
1906 Mrs George Berrow
1919,1927 William Jones
1939 William Macey
1978 Jean Baker
