16/02/2023
The pub, as we think of it today, emerged in the middle of the 19th century.
It incorporated elements of earlier types of buildings: the alehouse, the tavern and the inn. These had provided drink, food and shelter for centuries since the Middle Ages.
So to find the oldest place where you can still buy a drink, you must look at the surviving medieval inns.
The inn was a house for accommodating travellers. It probably first appeared in the 12th or 13th centuries.
Inns were different to taverns, which sold wine and food to the well-off. They were also different to alehouses, which sold ale, and later beer, plus simple food, to the lower classes.
The George Inn in Norton St Philip, Somerset, has the most substantial claim to be England’s earliest surviving purpose-built inn.
The inn appears to have been built in the 14th century (sometime after 1345) by the Carthusian monks of Hinton Charterhouse to provide accommodation for merchants attending the monastery’s markets and fairs.
The earliest phase that can be tree ring dated suggests the use of timber felled between 1430 and 1432, although some of the stonework might be earlier.
It was modified and extended in the 1st half of the 15th century.
