We have been doing house clearance in Cinderford since 2007, and in the villages spread round it across GL14. Ruspidge and Littledean below the town, Steam Mills at the top end, Newnham and Westbury-on-Severn out along the Severn. It is not city work. Hill terraces, old colliery cottages, bungalows on the newer estates. A fair number of properties standing empty because whoever is sorting them out lives two counties away.
One of ours in GL14 was booked not by a family at all but by a groundworks contractor based over at Newnham, on the Severn side of the district. The load off that job was weighed on the vehicle rather than run across a public weighbridge. Onboard weighing, it is called, and it means the weight of what leaves a property is taken at the property, so the figure on the ticket is the figure that travels on with the waste paperwork. That matters when there is a contractor in the middle who has to account to somebody else for what came off a site.
That is the whole of that one. It went through as a straightforward day and there was nothing about it anybody needed to ring about afterwards, which is how most of them go.
What it does show is the ordinary shape of the work round here. Half the time nobody local is left to stand in the hall. Somebody in another county holds the keys, or a neighbour does, or a contractor does. A house clearance in Cinderford goes ahead on trust, photographs and a phone call in the middle of the day.
Where we work in the Forest
Cinderford sits up on its hill above the Cinderford Valley, GL14, with Ruspidge and Littledean below, Steam Mills at the top end. Buckshaft, Whimsey, Trafalgar, Hawkwell Green and Upper and Lower Soudley round about. We work the whole Forest of Dean district out of the same run: Drybrook, Ruardean, Mitcheldean, Lydbrook and Longhope in GL17; Blakeney and Lydney down in GL15; Coleford across in GL16; Newnham and Westbury-on-Severn along the Severn in GL14; Newent and Dymock north in GL18. Same county, Gloucestershire, same team, same run of the week. The van that does house clearance in Cinderford on the Tuesday is the one down in Lydney or across in Coleford on the Wednesday.
Off the Forest patch there are three places we're out at often enough that they have pages of their own: house clearance in Gloucester, the city over the Severn and the biggest thing near us; house clearance in Stroud, up the valleys on the other side; and, smaller and quieter, house clearance in Dursley under the edge of the Cotswolds. Those are separate days, not the same run as the Forest. But they're near enough that a Cinderford booking and a Gloucester one can sit in the same week without anybody driving half the county twice.
There's no station in the town — hasn't been since the fifties, and the old line is a footpath now. Lydney, about seven miles south-west, on the Gloucester to South Wales line, with the Dean Forest Railway running off it. Gloucester is the other option if you're coming in by train to meet us at a property. We don't come by train, mind. We come in a Luton furniture van, which is the part that matters. Getting a Luton up some of the steeper terraces above the town centre needs a bit of thought before nine in the morning.
The council side is worth knowing too. Forest of Dean District Council handles the district's own rules and its bins; Gloucestershire County Council runs the household recycling centres. Neither of them will take a houseful off you. That is not what those sites are for, and the staff there will tell you the same.
What a day actually looks like
Three of our staff and one Luton van, on the drive or as near as we can get, at nine o'clock. A house clearance in Cinderford is normally a one-day job, and most standard properties are done inside that day. On a full family house a second run is common. If we can see that coming we say so before we start, not after.
The booking email asks the same set of questions every time — "Any items to be left?", "Are carpets to be cleared?", "Any parking restrictions for a large Luton/Tipper van outside of the property?" — and the more of them you answer up front, the better the day goes. If the curtains and the carpets are to stay, that is the box to say it in; it goes on the job sheet in capitals. It is the instruction people are most upset to find ignored.
If you can tell us the rooms, the floor, whether there's a lift, where a 3.5-tonne van can legally stand and whether the garage or shed is coming out too, the van leaves the yard carrying the right kit for it. Ropes and sack barrows for a hill terrace. Extra straps for a garage full of timber. A longer walk from the van on the newer closes, where you can't always get past the parked cars.
The kinds of house clearance Cinderford asks for
Probate work is the bulk of it. A probate house clearance in Cinderford usually starts with a solicitor or an executor rather than a relative, often one who has never seen the property. Where a solicitor or an executor is instructing us we deal with them directly and send the paperwork their way. Sentimental items get set aside rather than skipped: photographs, albums, letters, medals, anything handwritten. Say so when you book and the team leader keeps a box in the cab for it.
And the money side of a probate job is worth saying plainly. People ask it in a roundabout way and then never quite ask it. We invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly. Whoever is instructing us — and it can be settled out of the estate rather than out of somebody's own pocket while the grant is still working its way through. There is no deposit. The invoice comes after the work, once the house is empty and you've seen the photographs of it empty. Our probate house clearance page says the same in more detail if you want it in front of a solicitor.
End of tenancy house clearance comes next, usually from a landlord or an agent who needs a property empty and swept by a date. Flat clearance in GL14 is its own animal — there's no lift in most of what we clear here. It is stairs, and stairs decide the day.
Garage and loft clearance is half the work in the Forest. Garages here hold thirty years of paint tins, offcuts, bicycle frames and half-finished projects. Lofts hold whatever the family put up there in 1994 and never opened again. And hoarder house clearance we do without making a performance of it: protective kit, a strip-out room by room, then a clean if you want one.
Pricing, and how to get a figure
There is one honest answer to what a clearance comes to. It is this: ring the office on 0800 046 5555 and talk it through, or send photographs through the form on this page. Room by room, loft in or out, garage and shed in or out, and where the van can stand. From that you get a figure and a date. Nobody can give you a real one off a page. Anybody throwing numbers at you before they have seen the rooms is guessing.
Sofas, armchairs, futons and office chairs are handled apart from everything else. Since 2023 upholstered domestic seating counts as POPs waste, which means it cannot be mixed in with general household waste at the tip. It is kept separate and destroyed under its own regulated route. Fridges and freezers are the same story for a different reason: the gas has to be drawn off by a licensed operator before the unit is broken up. Mattresses have their own route as well. None of that is us inventing work — it is what the law requires of whoever takes them away.
Where the contents go
Nothing that comes out of a house clearance goes straight to a hole in the ground if we can help it. Anything still fit for use we try to move on rather than tip: furniture in decent order, unopened kitchen kit, tools, books, curtains. The Forest has charity shops in the town and in Coleford and Lydney that will take good stock. Reuse schemes that will take more than people expect. What's genuinely finished goes to a permitted transfer station to be weighed in and sorted. We keep the tickets for it. If you ever want proof of where a house went, ask and we'll dig them out.
Our upper-tier waste carrier registration with the Environment Agency is CBDU419679. We're insured for public liability as well. Worth checking on anyone you let take a houseful away. Gloucestershire County Council's recycling centres are for a car boot's worth, not for a four-bedroom house, and fly-tipped loads in the Forest lanes get traced back to whoever's name is on the paperwork inside the bags.
A few things we can't put in an ordinary load: gas bottles, asbestos sheeting from an old garage roof, car batteries, drums of solvent. Household chemicals and part-used paint we can take, but they go out under a separate regulated disposal route because that is how they have to be handled. Tell us on the phone if there's a shed full of that sort of thing and we'll plan for it rather than turn up and find it.
Full houses, and the overfilled ones
Heavily overfilled properties are routine work here, not something we flinch at. So are properties that have stood shut up for a year or two, or ones where the kitchen has to come out along with the carpets and the curtain rails. We've done verminous work in the county and we go at it the same way every time: kit on, room by room. A straight word with you at the end about what the floors and the walls are actually like underneath.
Booking a clearance
Booking a house clearance in Cinderford starts with a phone call. Talk through the property room by room — how many bedrooms, what's in the loft, whether the garage and shed are included, and where the van can stand. From that we'll give you a figure and a date, and one or two working days' notice is usually enough. If you're handling it from another county, keys with a neighbour and updates by phone through the day is a normal arrangement for us; we've done plenty of Forest of Dean clearances that way.
Cinderford, Drybrook, Mitcheldean, Ruardean, Lydbrook, Littledean, Ruspidge, Newnham, Blakeney, Lydney, Coleford, Longhope, Newent, Dymock and Westbury-on-Severn. All of it is one run for us, and all of it goes through the same licensed disposal route at the end of the day.
Questions we get asked
Do you cover the villages as well as the town? Yes. GL14 is the home patch — Cinderford, Ruspidge, Littledean, Steam Mills, Newnham and Westbury-on-Severn — and GL15, GL16, GL17 and GL18 go on the same run.
Can you handle a probate house clearance in Cinderford if I live at the other end of the country? That is most of what we do. Keys from a neighbour, an agent or a solicitor, photographs of every room before and after. A phone call during the day. Where a solicitor or an executor is acting for the estate we deal with them directly.
Can you invoice the solicitor or the estate rather than me personally? Yes. On probate work that is the usual arrangement. We invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate direct, it can be paid out of the estate, there is no deposit. The invoice follows the work rather than coming before it.
How do I get a figure for house clearance Cinderford without anyone visiting? Ring 0800 046 5555 and describe the rooms honestly, or send photographs through the form on this page. That is enough for a firm figure and a date on nearly every job.
Will you take carpets, curtains and the kitchen? Carpets and underlay come up if you want them up, curtains and rails come down, and a fitted kitchen can be stripped out. Just flag it when you book, because it changes what the team brings.
What won't go in the van? Gas bottles, asbestos, car batteries and drums of solvent. Fridges, freezers, mattresses and upholstered seating do go, but out through their own regulated routes rather than in with the household waste.
How much notice do you need for house clearance in Cinderford? Usually one or two working days. In the quieter months it can be sooner, and if a completion date is bearing down on you, say so on the phone and we'll tell you straight whether we can make it.
