The vast majority of ancient buildings have never received any meaningful research of any kind. For many this is quite the shock. Despite this, over the last 30 to 40 years, buildings archaeologists have been able to use multi-disciplinary approaches to tease out evidence for the origins, development, phasing, history and significance of structures that are both humble and grand.
This talk will explain how the study of ancient buildings grew out of the antiquarian movement, was championed in Parliament, and eventually became an essential part of the archaeological world. It will follow research into ten structures including Nine Ladies Stone Circle, Tattershall Castle, The Rose Playhouse, Stone Priory, Strelley Hall and Knole. It will also connect directly with the career of the speaker as he uses buildings that he has personal experience of to explain the ways that we study the archaeology of ancient architecture.
The speaker, James Wright (Triskele Heritage), is an award winning buildings archaeologist. He has two decades professional experience of ferreting around in people’s cellars, hunting through their attics and digging up their gardens. He hopes to find meaningful truths about how ordinary and extraordinary folk lived their lives in the mediaeval period. He is the author of the popular Mediaeval Mythbusting Blog.
All you need to do is register via Eventbrite and – when the time for the talk rolls around – grab your favourite beverage of choice, get comfy and enjoy.
The event will take place at 19:00 GMT+1 on Wednesday 22 May 2024 via Zoom. There will be a talk until approximately 20.15 GMT and then a questions and answer session. It will end around 21.00 GMT.
This lecture is crowdfunded through donation. It will be the debut of a new bespoke talk. There is no minimum donation so its possible to contribute as little or as much as you want. Your donation is your ticket and you will be sent a link to access the event by Eventbrite.
Please note that this live event will not be recorded and made available online afterwards.
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If have not received the login details on the evening of the event please email james@triskeleheritage.com – this address will be monitored up until the talk starts at 7pm GMT+1.
Charting the history of ancient public houses is a minefield. On the surface, the owners and tenants of pubs usually offer an apparently straightforward outline of their history on websites, leaflets, or signs. Unfortunately, it may be that some or all of what is relayed to patrons is perhaps not reliably accurate. Despite this, the folklore of pubs, referred to in this piece as pub-lore, is widely accepted as entirely truthful.
Using several real-world case studies, the purpose of this article will be to look at some common themes in the popular presentation of pub-lore. It will also offer advice on how and where to track down verified information on these buildings.
The Mermaid Inn, Rye
The Mermaid Inn, Rye, East Sussex (Picture Source: Tony Hisgett / Wikimedia Commons)
A pub that repeatedly comes up for discussion online is the Mermaid Inn at Rye (East Sussex). This rather attractive timber-framed building is genuinely mediaeval in date, but some of the claims made about it are perhaps suspect. The official website for the Mermaid asserts that it has cellars which have been very precisely dated to 1156. The website goes on to note that the rest of the original building was destroyed in 1377, during a French raid, and was rebuilt in 1420.
On the face of it, the story seems quite reasonable. There genuinely are vaulted cellars of mediaeval appearance beneath the Mermaid and they do pre-date the timber-framed building above. Equally, there really was a French raid on 29 June 1377 which left much of the town in smouldering ruins (Chazaud 1876, 71-2). Yet the commonly believed and repeated tales about the Mermaid can be called into question.
The year 1156 is mentioned repeatedly across the internet. It can be found via Rye Town Guide, Kent Live, Daily Telegraph, Vintage News and Wikipedia. The problem is that none of these outlets offer a source for the information. Even Wikipedia’s citations collapse as the given source is a popular book about ancient pubs in Sussex… which itself does not offer the origin for the 1156 claim (Stuart 2005, 130). It seems that the various books and media outlets reference each other.
Meanwhile, experienced historic building specialists point to the Mermaid’s cellars being a little later in date. The listed building description (first collated in 1951 and last amended in 1968) notes that the cellars date from the thirteenth century. Nikolaus Pevsner and Ian Nairn agreed with this attribution (Pevsner & Nairn 1965, 598). Meanwhile, Historic England’s research records point towards the cellar being thirteenth to fifteenth century in date based on work carried out by the Rape of Hastings Architectural Survey (Martin & Martin 1980).
It is not disputed that the cellar is mediaeval – it demonstrably is. However, the very specific date of 1156 can be queried given a general lack of evidence and the later appearance of the architecture. Instead, it is suggested that the year 1156 may have been proposed to coincide with the period of Henry II’s Cinque Port charters which were granted in 1155-56 (Poole 1951, 433). Yet whoever potentially made this connection may have misunderstood the primary evidence as Rye was not formally incorporated as a Cinque Port until 1190 (Burrows 1892, 63; Hollway 1848, 4-5).
The proposed rebuilding of 1420 has been repeated by lots of organisations including WhatPub, Haunted Rooms, Cool Places UK, The Independent, and Exploring GB. Once again, the evidence to back up the claim seems to be lacking. Given that the French raid took place in 1377, it is difficult to speculate why this particular year was chosen or why the plot of land was supposedly left empty for 43 years. Additionally, the architectural experts who have looked at the building have concluded that the Mermaid Inn was probably built even later – to the extent that there may not even be a connection to the raid of 1377. The listing description assigns the rebuilding to the late fifteenth century. Pevsner and Nairn (1965, 598) put it at c 1500. Martin and Martin (1980) concluded that a late mediaeval structure was extensively remodelled c 1530 and then extended c 1570-80. Although there is some limited room for debate, the specialists have all concluded that, on stylistic grounds, the Mermaid dates from the late fifteenth to early sixteenth century, with later remodelling,.
The identification of very specific dates for construction, such as 1156 or 1420, can only be arrived at if there are good documentary sources available, or if the timber-frame has been successfully sampled for dendrochronology. However, neither piece of evidence is present in the case of the Mermaid, which has cellars broadly dated to the thirteenth to fifteenth century and a timber-frame from the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century.
Dating Claims
Sign at the Bell Inn, Nottingham (Picture Source: James Wright / Triskele Heritage)
The discord between the claimed and verified dates for the Mermaid is not an isolated case. To the best of my knowledge, I remain sadly unaware of any historic pubs with an accurate date painted on their signs. Admittedly, sometimes the dates can be very close to archaeological reality. For example, the Bell Inn at Nottingham claims to date to 1437, but has tree-ring evidence for felling in c 1442 (Howard, Laxton & Litton 1996, 87). Elsewhere, the Henry Tudor Inn at Shrewsbury (Shropshire) goes in the other direction – the sign claims 1429, whereas the earliest dendrochronology points to felling in 1426 (Moran 2003, 235). These businesses do at least offer signage which is reasonably close to the scientific dating.
Some people point out that it is difficult to assign dates to public houses because they may have been built for another function and were then converted into pubs at a later period. Which date should we trust – construction or conversion? For example, the timber-framed structure of Ye Olde Salutation Inn at Nottingham is claimed to date to 1240. Yet it the standing building was constructed as a domestic house c 1440 and the earliest reference to the present building’s use as a pub comes from 1725.
Other folk note that, although more recent structures could have been built upon the site of demolished public houses, there may have been continuous service on site since the claimed date. There is some evidence that the Salutation was constructed on the site of a pub called The Archangel Gabriel Salutes the Virgin Mary which was referred to in 1414. Like the Mermaid Inn, the cellars of an earlier structure survive beneath the present building. However, despite some claims that the cellars might date to fifth or ninth centuries there is no real evidence for the year of their excavation (Mooney 2019, 24-25).
So which date should the Salutation pick for the sign? Perhaps the fifth century, ninth century, and 1240 claims should be discounted; but maybe the business could legitimately inscribe the year 1414 or 1440 on the sign. However, it seems unlikely that 1725 would ever appear on the sign as antiquity appears to be a prized commodity.
The Distant Past
Porch House / The Royalist Hotel, Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire (Picture Source: Jim Linwood / Wikimedia Commons)
At least the Salutation does have a reasonable claim to a mediaeval history, even if it might not be accurately presented. Other businesses operate upon what may be rather shakier foundations. For example, it is claimed that Porch House (formerly The Royalist Hotel) at Stow-on-the-Wold (Gloucestershire) has been serving since 947. It has even been noted by various organisations such as the Stow Civic Society, Gloucestershire Live, and Daily Telegraph that the age of the timbers of the building have been verified through carbon dating.
This would be unusual. Carbon dating is not routinely employed as a technique in buildings archaeology. The Heritage Team Leader at Gloucestershire County Council, Toby Catchpole, has noted that the historic environment record does not contain any records of such samples being taken from Porch House (pers comm. email 05/05/2022). Further enquiries have indicated that Stow-on-the-Wold did not develop as a town until the period c 1086-1107 (Elrington 1965, 142-65; Professor Chris Dyer, pers comm. email 06/05/2022), so it would seem unlikely that there would be a public house on that site in the mid-tenth century. Meanwhile, the listing description reveals that the primary phase of the building is likely to be sixteenth century in date, with remodelling that can be identified from a date stone of 1615.
Michael Hare, Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, has suggested that the date 947 may have been selected to coincide closely with the period of an early documentary reference to the region. This took the form of a land grant to Evesham Abbey, made in 949, which included the area that eventually became Stow-on-the-Wold (Elrington 1965, 142-65; Michael Hare, pers comm. email 06/05/2022).
We have seen dates claimed for pubs that may have been arbitrarily derived from early records of settlements before. It seems to have occurred at the Mermaid Inn at Rye via a mistaken connection made with Henry II’s charters of 1155-56. This phenomena could also be present in the origin story for Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem at Nottingham. The pub is claimed to have been in existence since 1189 and is said to have played host to Richard I’s knights as they mustered on their way to the crusades. 1189 was, conveniently, the year of accession for Richard I. However, the Trip is a seventeenth century building with much later remodelling. Elsewhere, The Old Man & Scythe at Bolton, Lancashire, is claimed to date from 1251. The latter was the year that Bolton received its market charter from Henry III (Lyte 1903, 873-74). Instead, the pub is a seventeenth century building (Scott 1998). Furthermore, the Bingley Arms at Bardsey-cum-Rigton (West Yorkshire) is claimed to date to 953. This seems to fit very neatly with the earliest known fabric of the parish church – thought to date from c 850-950 (NHLE 1135652; Pevsner & Radcliffe 1967, 89). Here, the pub is actually a building of the mid-eighteenth century.
In many cases, the year that has been selected for the origin of these pubs seems intended to correspond closely or directly with very early documentary references to the settlements in which they are located. This is my own speculation, but there may be an undertone of wishful thinking here along the lines of: “Well, there *must* have been a pub at that point, surely?” Looking at exactly when the claimed dates first appeared can also prove illuminating whilst considering the origins of pub-lore.
Development of Pub-lore
Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem (left) and The Gate Hangs Well (right), photographed before the demolition of the latter in 1910 (Picture Source: Gill 1909 / Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire)
Prior to 1910, Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem was nestled behind a much larger pub – The Gate Hangs Well – which dominated the street front of Castle Road, Nottingham, and largely obscured the view of the smaller pub. Signage claiming that the pub was late twelfth century in date was not present until after the demolition of The Gate Hangs Well, in 1910. To coincide with the new sign the landlord, George Ward, also issued trade cards bearing the legend: ‘It will be found on reference to old historical books that it was so called in King Richard the First’s Reign, A.D. 1189. When the Crusaders left for Jerusalem to fight in the Holy Land they stopped at this Inn for refreshment.’ Needless to say, these ‘old historical books’ have never come to light (Gill 1909, 64-65).
Prior to Ward’s publicity campaign, the Trip was rarely discussed. An article published in The Sporting Life, in 1887, merely noted the pub to be ‘one of the oldest in Nottingham’. It would be 1935 before the Trip began to be regularly mentioned by the media as a contender for the oldest pub in the country – a quarter of a century after the sign was painted for George Ward. There is a strong chance that the Trip’s twelfth century claim was originally made, by a canny landlord with an eye for the main chance, to cash in on the new-found visibility of his business. The claim to great antiquity was therefore made only relatively recently.
The origins of the tenth century claims made for both the Bingley Arms and Porch House may be even more recent. The earliest citation for the Bingley Arms’ claim of 953 was probably a Birmingham Daily Post article published on 7 October 1974. Meanwhile, the 947 claim of Porch House was likely first published by the Newcastle edition of the Sunday Sun on 4 November 1979. Prior to the 1970s, neither building had been discussed in connection to being particularly ancient.
Returning to the Mermaid Inn, the building was purchased in 1993 by Bob Pinwill and Judith Blincow (the current owner). It may be significant that, prior to 1993, there do not seem to have been any references to the dates 1156 or 1420 in connection to the building. Neither date appears in the British Newspaper Archive or in any publications on the history of Rye before this time. The earliest citation for the 1156 / 1420 claims seems to be an edition of Egon Ronay’s hotel and restaurant guide published in October 1994 (Ronay 1994, 694). Significantly, this was the year immediately after Pinwill and Blincow opened for business. After that, references to the two dates slowly started to dominate the literature (Ronay 1997, 542, Stuart 2005, 130; Scanlan 2009) and eventually flooded onto websites including Ingos England Blog (2010), Beside the Sea Holidays (2011), and Geograph (2012). From the 2010s the two dates were routinely mentioned in connection to the Mermaid and are now widely cited across the internet and in popular literature.
It is interesting to note that many of the earliest citations for pub-lore appears in the form of signs, trade cards, newspapers, magazines, and hotel guides rather than in archaeological surveys, peer-reviewed journal articles, or scholarly textbooks. Could we be looking at a deliberately formulated version of history put out as press releases and publicity by landlords trying to drum up business by claiming that their pubs were deeply ancient?
You might very well think that; I couldn’t possibly comment.
Accumulation of Pub-lore
The Red Lion, York (Picture Source: James Wright / Triskele Heritage)
The lion’s share of this article has been given to a discussion about dating claims made for pubs. However, read a little further into pub-lore and it is common to find further stories attached to the buildings. I’m sure many of these will be familiar to you. Perhaps Oliver Cromwell’s troops were reputed to have had a pint there before a battle (Black Bull at Otley, West Yorkshire). Maybe Elizabeth I is said to have stayed there (Old Crown, Digbeth, West Midlands). Or there may be claims that it is the country’s most haunted pub (Golden Fleece, York). The sheer number of rumours makes the head of this buildings archaeologist spin alarmingly.
Particularly popular are claims that pubs are built from ship timbers, with examples including The White Horse Inn at Sibton, Suffolk; Green Man at Hurst, Berkshire; and Dun Cow at Shrewsbury, Shropshire. Even more common are the rumours that ancient pubs feature secret passages, as at The Lamb Inn at Eastbourne, East Sussex; Old White Swan at York; and the Blackbird Inn at Ponteland (Northumberland). It is even claimed that some pubs have both ship timbers AND secret passages… perhaps unsurprisingly the Mermaid Inn at Rye is one of those.
We’ve covered secret passage tales in many other posts on the Mediaeval Mythbusting Blog and I’ve looked at why secret passage stories are so enduringly popular here. Suffice to say that every single hamlet, village, town, and city in the country has such rumours. Sadly, the archaeological realities rarely match the romanticism of the tales and there does not seem to be any archaeological evidence for a hidden tunnel at the Mermaid.
Recently, online, one chap tried to tell me that the specific reason that the Mermaid had not been tree-ring dated is that all its timbers were reclaimed from ships so the date of construction could not be established. Whilst it is acknowledged that, in some limited cases, evidence exists for the reuse of ship timbers in coastal regions, there is no verified proof that this was the case at the Mermaid. The entire structure appears to have been built by carpenters using either freshly felled green oak or from timbers reused from other buildings.
Places such as the Mermaid seem to attract quite the heady volume of pub-lore. One of my favourite examples of this accumulation of tales comes from the Red Lion at York. A sign outside the pub boasts that the building is thirteenth century in origin and that it is York’s oldest pub. It goes on to indicate that there is a priest hole, that Dick Turpin once evaded capture by escaping from the attic, and that regular hangings used to take place in an outbuilding. This is quite the fabulous litany. I suspect that little of it is grounded in reality.
The Red Lion is listed as being fifteenth century and later. I’m not going to enter the fray by trying to identify York’s oldest pub. However, the claims to be the oldest pub in a settlement, county, or country are legion and bitterly fought over. You can read my take on claims to be the oldest pub in the country via articles for History Extra and Historic England. The Dick Turpin connection seems cynical. The highwayman is, of course, infamously connected with York. However, Turpin had no opportunity to make any daring escapes from the Red Lion. The first time he entered York was as a prisoner in October 1738 and he remained incarcerated at the castle until his execution, almost 8 months later. Meanwhile, there are no records of extra-judicial lynchings taking place in the outbuildings of the pub.
Priest holes probably deserve their own mythbusting article. Maybe I will get around to that one day. Although a small number of genuine hiding places for persecuted early modern Catholic missionaries are known from high-status sites – including Baddesley Clinton (Warwickshire), Harvington Hall (Worcestershire), and Coughton Court (Warwickshire) – less well-founded rumours of their existence are endemic. On investigation, they often turn out to be non-existent or a misreading of the architecture. The latter might include misinterpretations of features such as perfectly regular understairs cupboards, attic hatches, or blocked fireplace recesses. Notably, the “priest hole” at the Red Lion is not shown to patrons and there do not seem to be photographs or plans of it available.
Aside from the claims to extreme antiquity and hyperbole surrounding the assertion that the Red Lion is York’s oldest boozer, much of the pub-lore recited on the signage fits into what can be described as gory, gruesome, and grotesque legends. There seems to be more of the Halloween scream-fest that is the London Dungeon tourist attraction here than verified history and archaeology.
Research Recommendations
The Fox Inn, Kelham, Nottinghamshire – surveyed by Triskele Heritage in 2019 (Picture Source: James Wright / Triskele Heritage)
Despite the myriad red herrings in pub-lore, it can still be possible to wade through the mire to try and make some meaningful statements about the actual history of pubs. There are several resources available.
Each county also has a historic environment record (HER) which is a database of heritage assets including listed and non-listed buildings. There is a statutory requirement for HERs to be staffed and maintained, usually by an employee of a local authority, and much (but not all) of their data is available via the Heritage Gateway website.
Ultimately, there is no one single repository of information on the dating of historic buildings and a researcher should always attempt to cast the net wide to ensure that the most up to date research is captured. More detailed information on some of the issues surrounding research into historic buildings can be found via the following articles published through the Mediaeval Mythbusting Blog:
When gathered together and compared, pub-lore begins to look like a battleground in which businesses are vying with each other to promote the most outlandish stories. It would be pure speculation to discuss exactly why pub owners do this, but there may be a reasonable suspicion that it is connected to marketing. I do wonder whether pub-lore really does lead to a higher footfall, though. Personally, I’m more interested in the quality of the beer than the outrageous claims.
Does any of this really matter though? Are these not just charming stories that are essentially harmless? Can we not leave them to be enjoyed? Am I spoiling the fun? Well, I do think that the truth is fundamentally important. Architecture is a very powerful medium that offers an external and physical vision of a society.
Historic buildings matter. Days out often centre around a trip to a country house. Holidays are taken in towns with a wealth of eye-catching edifices. Weddings are held at rambling, ancient castles – perfect backdrops for the all-important photographs. Some people dream of moving to the idyllic cottage in the country. We go to meet our good friends in the creaky old pub. The good times in our lives are closely associated with beautiful ancient buildings. Good architecture is essential to our well-being as a species. Therefore, if architecture is fundamentally important, we owe it to ourselves to make sure that we understand it properly.
I’m hopeful that there may be some businesses out there who have been diligent in their research and present an accurate representation of their history to patrons. If you know of such a pub then please do let me know via email as I’d love to read what they have to say about the property.
Meanwhile, I’d like to propose a motion that the signs, leaflets, and websites dealing with the “history” of pubs be retitled “pub-lore”. There is probably more folklore here than history… and some of that folklore seems to be alarmingly recent in origin.
Burrows, M., 1892, Cinque Ports. Longmans, Green & Co. London & New York.
Chazaud, A. M., 1876, La Chronique du Bon Duc Loys de Bourbon. Librairie Renouard. Paris.
Elrington, C. (ed.), 19765, A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 6. Victoria County History. London.
Gill, H., 1909, ‘The Old Inns of Brewhouse Yard’ in Transactions of the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire Volume 13. Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire. Nottingham.
Hollway, W., 1848, The History and Aantiquities of the Ancient Town and Port of Rye. John Russell Smith. London.
Howard, R., Laxton, R. & Litton, D., 1996, ‘Nottingham University Tree-ring Dating Laboratory: Sherwood Forest Oak; A Dendrochronological Survey’, in Vernacular Architecture Vol. 27. Vernacular Architecture Group.
Lyte, H. C. M. (ed.), 1903, Calendar of the Charter Rolls, Volume I: Henry III, A. D. 1226-1257. His Majesty’s Stationery Office. London.
Martin, D. & Martin, B., 1980, Historic Buildings in Eastern Sussex Volume 1. Hastings Area Archaeological Papers. Hastings.
Mooney, D., 2019, Nottingham Pubs. Amberley. Stroud.
Moran, M., 2003, Vernacular Buildings of Shropshire. Logaston Press.
Pevsner, N. & Nairn, Ian., 1965 (2001 ed.), The Buildings of England: Sussex. Penguin. London.
Pevsner, N. & Radcliffe, E., 1967, The Buildings of England: Yorkshire – West Riding. Penguin. London.
Poole, A. L., 1951 (1985 ed.), Domesday Book to Magna Carta: 1087-1216. Clarendon Press. Oxford.
Ronay, E., 1997, Egon Ronay’s Visa Guide: Hotels and Restaurants: 1997. Bookman. London.
Ronay, E., 1994, Egon Ronay’s Cellnet Guide: Hotels and Restaurants: 1995: 3000 Establishments in Great Britain and Ireland. Macmillan. London.
Scanlan, D., 2009, Paranormal Sussex. Amberley. Stroud.
Scott, I., 1998, Old Man and Scythe Inn, Bolton, Lancashire – Building Recording Survey. Lancaster University Archaeological Unit. Unpublished archaeological report.
Stuart, D., 2005, Old Sussex Inns. Breedon. Stoke on Trent.
About the author
James Wright (Triskele Heritage) is an award-winning buildings archaeologist who frequently writes and lectures on the subject of mediaeval building myths. He has over two decades professional experience of ferreting around in people’s cellars, hunting through their attics and digging up their gardens. He hopes to find meaningful truths about how ordinary and extraordinary folk lived their lives in the mediaeval period.
The History, Design and Archaeology of Staircases in the Mediaeval and Early Modern Periods
We might think of staircases as a seemingly functional or mundane part of our buildings. However, in this talk we will re-evaluate our relationship with stairs by looking at their history, design and archaeology. Superficially, staircases are a means to access upper or lower storeys in a building… but in the past they could be connected to notions of elite status, the control of access to important rooms, and major social changes in society.
During the mediaeval period, staircases were associated with the most prestigious buildings, such as churches or castles, which demanded upper levels in their architecture. However, by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries sweeping changes were afoot across society and the stairs began to be constructed in more humble homes. Their appearance can be linked to adjustments in attitudes to privacy, technology, possessions, education and the environment.
The speaker, James Wright (Triskele Heritage), is an award winning buildings archaeologist. He has two decades professional experience of ferreting around in people’s cellars, hunting through their attics and digging up their gardens. He hopes to find meaningful truths about how ordinary and extraordinary folk lived their lives in the mediaeval period. He is the author of the popular Mediaeval Mythbusting Blog.
All you need to do is register via Eventbrite and – when the time for the talk rolls around – grab your favourite beverage of choice, get comfy and enjoy.
The event will take place at 19:00 GMT+1 on Thursday 25 April 2024 via Zoom. There will be a talk until approximately 20.15 GMT and then a questions and answer session. It will end around 21.00 GMT.
This lecture is crowdfunded through donation. It will be the debut of a new bespoke talk. There is no minimum donation so its possible to contribute as little or as much as you want. Your donation is your ticket and you will be sent a link to access the event by Eventbrite.
Please note that this live event will not be recorded and made available online afterwards.
If you have a question about the event – in the first instance please see our FAQs section. The answer will almost certainly be in there.
Eventbrite recommend using the most up to date version of Google Chrome to access the meeting.
If you have any problems accessing the eventplease email: james@triskeleheritage.com This address will only be monitored until the event begins at 7pm GMT, so please do login with plenty of time to spare.
