We visit the hilltop pub with the best view over Bristol

‘Cashless pub’, the A4 printed sign taped on the entrance doors warns customers as they come inside.

Several costly break-ins before Christmas forced the pub bosses to drop taking coins and notes for pints - not that it’s having an impact on trade when I visit on a Tuesday afternoon in the school half-term week.

Inside, there’s a friendly group of regulars nursing pints of Foster’s and Thatchers cider close to the bar, while at the other end of the room two mothers sit with a hungry group of small children around a couple of bowls of chips on a table.

The Dundry Inn, perched at the very top of Dundry Hill south of Bristol, is a welcoming pub frequented by village locals, worksmen and hikers on the sunny day I’m there.

It’s located on the main through road of the small village, and is opposite the huge 97ft high tower of St Michael’s Church built by the Society of Merchant Venturers in the late 15th Century. I can only think of the Rising Sun in Pensford where a beer garden is so dwarfed by the local village church.

But that’s not the main attraction to this beautiful pub.

You can just about see it through the trees from the large pub beer garden. A quick wander down past the church and around the corner into Hill Street provides it in full; the best view of Bristol.

It’s a wonderfully clear day and my 550ft-high viewing point shows up Hartcliffe and Withywood below me, before Bedminster, the tower-filled city centre and then the north Bristol and the outline of Severn Bridges in the background. It’s quite something.

Back at the pub, I return to the bar where there’s a good selection of beers on draught from mainstream lagers like Birra Moretti to more local beers like Butcombe Original. I go for a pint of Moretti and a large glass of the house red wine. The drinks with a packet of Quavers come to a reasonable £13.55.

We’re not hungry, but I pick up a menu and see all the pub classics priced under £15. There’s also a ‘winter warmers’ deal with a two-course meal for £12, served Monday to Saturday between 12noon and 5pm.

On the Saturdays when Bristol City play at home, the pub puts on a breakfast club with an all-you-can-eat fry up costing just £5.95.

Drinks in hand, I walk to the garden where the children are back outside playing and a pair of walkers are getting a well-earned rest with some drinks and hot food. My partner and I sit down and breathe in the fresh, countryside air - it’s hard to believe we’re just a mile from the urban sprawl of Bristol.

Also in the garden I spot a small village shop inside an old shed-style building. It sells everything from pasta to fresh vegetables to bottles of beer.

Finishing my pint, I head over and speak to the manager who tells me the store opened during lockdown to help villagers stranded in their homes. He said it was very busy at its peak but now it gets around ten customers a day.

“We just decided to keep it going to help people in the village,” he adds. Proof that a well-run village pub is usually so much more than about selling food and drink, it’s the hub of the community.

The Dundry Inn, Church Road, Dundry BS41 8LH