 Mountview was founded in Crouch End in 1945 by Peter Coxhead and Ralph Nossek as "The Mountview Theatre Club", an amateur repertory company staging a new production for a six-day run every second week.Among the club's productions were Coxhead's staging of Eugene O'Neill's "Mourning Becomes Electra", a production of the complete Arnold Wesker Trilogy – "Chicken Soup with Barley", "Roots" and "I'm Talking about Jerusalem" directed by Peter Scott-Smith – and "Buttered Both Sides", a revue written and composed by Mountview member Ted Dicks and directed by Gale Webb, which later transferred to the Fortune Theatre in London's West End.Early in 1946, when 21 years old, Coxhead borrowed £2,300 to buy the lease of Cecile House, a large derelict property at Crouch End, north London.