10 September 2020
This month, as part of my research on mediaeval building myths, I want to look at a perennial subject amongst both local residents and folk across the world – which is the oldest pub in Nottingham?
This is a popular topic on internet discussion groups and has even been the subject of a TV documentary, History Hunters, presented by Tony Robinson, but it still crops up with great frequency. Given that I have been a resident in Nottingham for many years, am a self-professed lover of pubs (I grew up in a boozer) and a mediaeval buildings specialist, I thought that it was time to investigate…
There are three pubs in the city which are claimed to be the oldest and all three have very specific dates proudly painted on their exterior walls. Ye Olde Trip to Jersusalem (Brewhouse Yard) is proclaimed to date to 1189: ‘The Oldest Inn In England’, Ye Olde Salutation Inn (Hounds Gate) claims to date from 1240 and the Bell Inn (Angel Row) may be a mere whippersnapper at just 1437. All of them feature historic timber-frame structures and are located over man-made caves cut into Nottingham’s soft sandstone. However, do any of the dates correspond to standing building fabric?
Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem
Taking the oldest claim first, even the Trip’s own publicity material casts a dubious light as ‘the precise date of 1189 is difficult to verify’. The pub is nestled into the bottom of the natural rock outcrop, crowned by Nottingham Castle, and rumour states that it was originally the castle brewhouse. The royal castle was founded in 1067 and it was later besieged by Richard the Lionheart, the famous crusader, who came to the throne of England in 1189. The date painted on the side of the building seems to have been decided upon entirely arbitrarily to create a circumstantial legend corresponding to the coronation of the crusader king.
Scott Lomax, City Archaeologist for Nottingham City Council, believes that parts of the caves and cellars at the Trip may be mediaeval in origin, but they have been extensively remodelled (Lomax 2013, 126). This is confirmed by caves expert, Tony Waltham, who pointed out that much of the mediaeval environment would have been destroyed when the cliff-face of Castle Rock was cut back c. 1600 to create the present extents of Brewhouse Yard (Waltham 2018, 19-20).
Meanwhile, the timber-framed structure which juts out from the cliff has been dated by Historic England to the early seventeenth century, but it was extensively remodelled in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The first clear map to show the building is that drawn by Badder and Peat in 1744 and the first outright reference to its use as a public house comes six years later in Charles Deering’s History and Antiquities of Nottingham. At this time the pub was known as The Pilgrim – the current name was not recorded until Willoughby’s Directory of Nottinghamshire in 1799.
Ye Olde Salutation Inn
The Salutation proudly claims to be a mid-thirteenth century building constructed over ninth century caves. It consists of a brick-built extension to the south of an older, jettied, timber-framed block with a fine crown-post roof structure. Alike to the Trip, the pub is a building which has experienced a great deal of later remodelling. However, with this structure we really must pop on our detective caps…
Historic England have listed the Salutation as being a sixteenth century structure with extensive rebuilding taking place, first in the eighteenth century and again during the dramatic works which saw hundreds of surrounding historic buildings demolished in the 1960s. Whilst this resource is generally accurate, the University of Nottingham carried out tree-ring dating on site in 1992, but the results have never been formally published (so we can perhaps forgive Historic England for their omission). A bit of investigative work turned up an archived version of the 1998 History Hunters website – which includes a reference to Dr Philip Dixon (at the time a staff member at the University of Nottingham) confirming that the dating for the crown post roof cannot be later than 1450. This is followed by a stray mention that the dendrochronology recorded a felling date, for timbers in the north range, of 1440. Dr David Cross has subsequently refined that date to a felling range of c 1432-40.
The cave systems below the pub definitely pre-date the extant fifteenth century building as its foundations block the original entrance to the cellars. The oldest of the caves are the three spaces which occupy the north of the site, these were later extended to the south (Waltham 2018, 18-19). However, despite excavations which were reported on in 1937, there is no firm evidence to date them to the ninth century. This date was probably picked arbitrarily to link with the earliest known documentary reference to the settlement of Nottingham (Lomax 2013, 48).
However, in 1414, a public house does seem to have stood above these caves, on the site of the present building, which was apparently known as The Archangel Gabriel Salutes the Virgin Mary (hence Salutation). This record pre-dates the standing structure and probably refers to an earlier building on the same plot of land which was subsequently replaced. It is difficult to know exactly when the extant building became a venue for drinking. Claims have been made that, in 1642, the pub was re-purposed as a recruiting station for the royalist cause at the beginning of the English Revolution (Brown 1992, 4). However, the first firmly corroborated mention of a licensee – Samuel Hudson – at the building comes from 1725.
Bell Inn
To the casual visitor, the exterior of the Bell Inn does not seem to be an especially mediaeval-looking building. It does not have the exposed timbers of the Trip or the jettied first floor of the Salutation and Historic England report that it was heavily remodelled c 1820 with further works occurring in the twentieth century. However, of the three Nottingham pubs it has the most verifiable chronology. Tree-ring dating, from the two-bay crown post roof, reported by the Vernacular Architecture Group, yielded a felling range of 1442 +/- 10 years. This is quite remarkable as it is largely contemporary with the construction of the north range at the Salutation and another building at 11 Bridlesmith Gate. This dating also fits the known phases of construction for several timber-framed buildings in Newark-on-Trent, 15 miles to the east, including 37-39 Kirkgate, the Old White Hart and the Woolpack (the latter two have also been pubs). Such data shows that there was an active programme of building in the region during the mid-fifteenth century.
Given that the dendrochronology spans the period 1432-52, it is curious that the date 1437 has been selected for the side of the building. As we have seen, pubs generally claim to be far older than they can prove – the Bell is a most modest establishment indeed!
The Bell can also claim the earliest known reference of the three buildings as a public house. The will of Robert Sherwin, dated 1638, contains a legacy which bequeathed half the revenues of the inn to be split amongst the Nottingham parishes of St Mary, St Peter and St Nicholas.
Results
Bell Inn
Oldest dated fabric: c 1442 +/- 10 years (Source: Vernacular Architecture Group)
First definite mention as a pub: 1638 (Source: Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire)
Ye Olde Salutation Inn
Oldest dated fabric: c 1432-1440 (Source: University of Nottingham)
First definite mention as a pub: 1725 (Source: Nottinghamshire Archives)
Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem
Oldest dated fabric: Early seventeenth century (Source: Historic England)
First definite mention as a pub: 1751 (Source: Charles Deering’s History and Antiquities of Nottingham)
Conclusions
On the balance of the physical and documentary evidence, Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem cannot claim to be the oldest pub in Nottingham – let alone the oldest inn in England! Meanwhile, both the Salutation and Bell have structures firmly dated to the mid-fifteenth century. Although there is perhaps more future archival research to be done, the Bell can currently be said to be the oldest standing pub in the city and it is known to have been serving up ales since at least 1638.
Quite which date the Bell Inn should really proclaim is uncertain – 1442 or 1638? However, none of the buildings have specifically accurate dates painted on their exteriors and this must be noted as a very widespread phenomenon when looking into the history of public houses! There seems to be a misty-eyed romanticism associated with the Great British boozer which prizes a tall tale over a pint far more than it does archaeological reality. Which is ironic, really, as archaeologists are renowned for enjoying a drink…
References
Ian Brown, 1992, A Guide to the Civil War in Nottinghamshire.
Scott Lomax, 2013, Nottingham: The Buried Past of a Historic City Revealed.
Tony Waltham, 2018 (4th edition), Sandstone Caves of Nottingham.
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to the exhaustive research by Dr David Cross of Tours of Nottingham.
About the author
James Wright 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 welcomes contact through Twitter or email.
The Mediaeval Mythbusting Blog blog is the basis of a forthcoming book – Historic Building Mythbusting – Uncovering Folklore, History and Archaeology which will be released via The History Press on 6 June 2024. More information can be found here:
