33 pubs · 13 countries · 12 closed since 2020
Old pubs that have stopped pouring
A guide that lists only the survivors quietly rewrites the record. These are pubs and taverns with claims running back centuries that no longer serve: some burned, some were bombed, some were cleared for something taller, and some simply could not carry the rent. The oldest claim among them is Royal Fountain Hotel, which said 1029.
A closure has to be recorded somewhere we can point you at before it appears here. If you know of one we have missed, or of a pub on this list that has reopened, tell us — reopenings happen more often than you would think.
The archive, most recent closure first
- Brauerei-Gasthof HeroldPegnitz-Büchenbach, GermanyClaimed1568Closed2025
Closed in 2025, the Herold and Haas sisters retiring after the brewery and inn had been in the family for generations.
infranken.de - Au Bon Vieux TempsBrussels, BelgiumClaimed1695Closed2025
The one business ever registered at Impasse Saint-Nicolas 4 — a sole trader trading as a café-restaurant there since 1 December 1970 — is recorded in the Belgian Crossroads Bank for Enterprises as having ceased on 29 March 2025, and the register shows nobody in its place on a database state of 11 September 2026. No publisher reports why. The fire that travellers describe is theirs alone and remains unconfirmed.
kbopub.economie.fgov.be - The Plough InnSt Peter Port, GuernseyClaimed1810Closed2025
The tenant stopped trading at the start of July 2025 and no replacement was found. The Liberation Group, which owns the site, said in December 2025 that it wanted a new operator, and CAMRA still recorded the pub shut and seeking tenants in March 2026. By 23 June 2026 Island FM reported the freehold on the market at offers over £350,000, marketed as a development opportunity that could become a house subject to planning permission.
islandfm.com - Hark to BountySlaidburn, Lancashire, EnglandClaimed1600Closed2024
Closed long term from 30 November 2024 and being marketed for sale. A Grade II listed sandstone inn of the early 17th century with a first-floor courtroom that served the Forest of Bowland.
camra.org.uk - Bruce InnFalkland, ScotlandClaimed1607Closed2024
Trading stopped on 1 March 2024. CAMRA records the pub closed long term from that date with its future uncertain, and the premises at 23 High Street were then advertised to let or for sale with vacant possession, the tenant having left; that advertisement lapsed in June 2026. The inn's own web address no longer resolves.
camra.org.uk - Jameson TavernFreeport, Maine, United StatesClaimed1779Closed2024
Closed in November 2024 after 245 years, the owner citing staffing and rent and planning to move the name to Windham. The building is let: a beer and wine shop took the former dining room in 2023, and in 2025 the King’s Head, a sister of the Portland pub, opened in the tavern space.
pressherald.com - L'Estrille du Vieux-BruxellesBrussels, BelgiumClaimed1587Closed2022
The last business trading as L'Estrille du Vieux Bruxelles at Rue de Rollebeek 7 ceased on 14 March 2022 in the Belgian companies register, and the regional heritage inventory was already calling the house a former inn in 2016. A cocktail bar, Le Vertigo, holds the address.
kbopub.economie.fgov.be - Bar LuizRio de Janeiro, BrazilClaimed1887Closed2022
Bankruptcy declared in 2022 and the bar on Rua da Carioca shut. The name was bought at auction in October 2023 by the owner of the Belmonte chain, who said he would reopen it on the same street.
diariodorio.com - Old College BarGlasgow, ScotlandClaimed1515Closed2021
Lost: not trading when fire swept 223-229 High Street on 4 May 2021; demolished 16 June 2021 for public safety. CAMRA closed its record in October 2021, site vacant. The 1515 date on the frontage is not supported — Old Glasgow Pubs records the building as 1810, first licensed 1812.
scotsman.com - Eagle and ChildOxford, EnglandClaimed1650Closed2020
Closed since March 2020. Bought by the Ellison Institute of Technology in October 2023; consent for a Foster + Partners restoration granted October 2025, completion estimated 2027. The 1650 date is tradition — the name is first recorded in 1684.
en.wikipedia.org - Royal Oak HotelParramatta, NSW, AustraliaClaimed1829Closed2020
Closed in 2020 at 387 Church Street: the New South Wales liquor licence register shows the hotel's thirty gaming machines gone between the March and April 2020 premises lists while every other Parramatta hotel kept its thirty, and the licence itself recorded across the road at 404-406 Church Street by December 2021. The corner was taken for the Parramatta Light Rail.
timegents.com - The Lad in the LaneBirmingham, EnglandClaimed1400Closed2019
CAMRA has recorded the pub closed long term since 1 September 2019, with its future uncertain. The late fourteenth-century timber frame, listed Grade II, is still standing but decaying, and BirminghamWorld reported that West Midlands Fire Service sent five engines and about thirty firefighters to the building late on 7 November 2024 to put out two fires that the service believed had been started deliberately. Nobody was hurt. No restoration or reopening has been announced.
birminghamworld.uk - Pod ŁososiemGdańsk, PolandClaimed1598Closed2019
Closed in 2019 after the family that had run it since 1976 spent about three years looking for a buyer who would keep it going, and found none. The Baroque house on ulica Szeroka still stands; the business that carried the name Der Lachs for two and a half centuries does not.
radiogdansk.pl - White SwanHarringworth, EnglandClaimed1550Closed2018
Closed on 7 January 2018 and recorded by CAMRA as closed long term the same day, future uncertain; the entry was last updated in April 2024 and still says so. Grade II listed, and described in the listing as a public house of C17 origins rather than the C16 the sign claims.
camra.org.uk - Tibbie Shiel's InnSt Mary's Loch, Scottish Borders, United KingdomClaimed1824Closed2017
Closed to the public on 1 January 2017, recorded by CAMRA as permanently closed and in other use; no real ale and no longer trading as a pub by July 2017. Isabella 'Tibbie' Shiel began taking in travellers at St Mary's Cottage after her husband died in 1824, and the inn that took her name served ale, kept thirteen bedrooms and drew James Hogg and the writers of the Noctes Ambrosianae.
camra.org.uk - Brunswick HouseToronto, Ontario, CanadaClaimed1876Closed2016
Closed on the night of Thursday 31 March 2016, reported that day by the Toronto Star and by CTV as the end of 140 years. A Rexall pharmacy took the ground floor, closing in 2021; a Value Village Boutique is mapped at 481 Bloor Street West now.
en.wikipedia.org - Seven Stars InnRobertsbridge, East Sussex, EnglandClaimed1177Closed2015
Closed on 30 June 2015 and recorded by CAMRA as closed long term, future uncertain, with Harveys as freeholder. A Grade II* Wealden hall house dated to about 1400, claimed as 1177.
camra.org.uk - Red LionWingham, EnglandClaimed1286Closed2015
Closed in 2015. Punch sold it in October 2014 to a developer who applied to convert it into six flats; the application was withdrawn, the village had the pub registered as an Asset of Community Value in May 2015, and a campaign to reopen it drew public backing in January 2016. It has not poured since.
dover-kent.com - T & H Doolan'sWaterford, IrelandClaimed1710Closed2014
Stopped trading on 30 January 2014, when Eamon Reid retired and the premises went to auction. Apart from one season as an outdoor bar in 2020, while work went on inside, it has not served since.
wlrfm.com - Bridge CafeNew York City, United StatesClaimed1794Closed2012
Flooded by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012 and never reopened. The building was sold in 2021 for $3.3 million; Netflix used the room as a set in 2024, and a new operator was approved by Community Board 1 that May. No liquor licence is recorded at 279 Water Street in the State Liquor Authority's active list.
en.wikipedia.org - Crispin and CrispianusStrood, EnglandClaimed1200Closed2011
Closed for renovation in 2010 and gutted by an arson attack in March 2011; the Grade II listed shell survives, boarded up. Historic England dates the fabric early 17th century; local tradition and a Medway Archives document put the origins in 1203.
kentonline.co.uk - Crook InnTweedsmuir, ScotlandClaimed1604Closed2006
Closed in 2006 and recorded by CAMRA as closed long term from February 2013, future uncertain. The Tweedsmuir Community Company bought the freehold in 2013 for £160,000 after plans to convert it to housing met local resistance; the hotel is still derelict and on the Buildings at Risk Register for Scotland.
camra.org.uk - The SalutationDover, EnglandClaimed1100Closed1983
Lost pub: the earliest record of the name at 5 Biggin Street is 1791 and the medieval claim is tradition. The original closed on 5 August 1963 and was pulled down to widen the pavement; the replacement further down the street closed on 6 December 1983.
kentonline.co.uk - Shipwright's Arms HotelBalmain East, NSW, AustraliaClaimed1841Closed1965
Closed in 1965 and de-licensed the year after. The New South Wales heritage inventory sheet for 10 Darling Street records the house sold to Millers Brewery in 1950, the business carried on under lease until Tooth & Company closed it in 1965, the licence extinguished in 1966 and an application by new owners in 1967 to convert the building into five flats. It stands at 10 Darling Street as flats and offices above the Balmain East wharf.
en.wikipedia.org - Royal Fountain HotelCanterbury, EnglandClaimed1029Closed1942
Lost inn: destroyed in the air raid of 1 June 1942, licence transferred to the Abbot's Barton Hotel. Documented as the Fountain Inn from the eighteenth century; the 1029 date is a tradition already being printed as fact in 1907.
kentonline.co.uk - Green Dragon TavernBoston, Massachusetts, United StatesClaimed—Closed1832
Lost: advertised for sale in 1826 and demolished in the early 1830s — sources give 1828, when Green Dragon Lane was widened and renamed Union Street, and 1832. Today's Green Dragon Tavern on Marshall Street is a modern namesake.
en.wikipedia.org - Vörös SünBudapest, HungaryClaimed—Closed1805
The only inn in the Buda castle quarter for many years, and too small at seven rooms when the government offices moved from Pozsony in 1783. It stopped working as an inn in 1805; the house is flats today, with the red hedgehog of its sign still on the front.
muemlekem.hu - Tun TavernPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United StatesClaimed1686Closed1781
Lost: burned in 1781 and never rebuilt; the site is under Interstate 95. Marines toast it as their birthplace, though the Corps' own historian argued the first enlistments were more likely taken at the Conestoga Waggon.
en.wikipedia.org - Herberge zum LöwenSeelbach-Schönberg, GermanyClaimed1231Closedunknown
Closed and standing empty on the pass road below the Schönberg, with the roadside sign still claiming Germany's oldest inn. The last opening anybody reported was in April 2009, when a new tenant took it on.
schwarzwaelder-bote.de - Café De Drie KoningenHoutave (Zuienkerke), BelgiumClaimed1654Closedunknown
Not trading. New owners announced a reopening for the spring of 2024; the restoration was then delayed by the building’s recognition as a protected monument, and the Flemish government approved a heritage management plan for the centre of Houtave in February 2026. The work has not been reported as finished.
inventaris.onroerenderfgoed.be - Austeria Miejska (Sławków)Sławków, PolandClaimed1781Closedunknown
The town of Sławków, which owns the building, ended the tenant's lease in 2020: it announced on 25 November that the Austeria had closed on 1 November when the tenant gave the business up, the epidemic among the reasons. The lease then went to tender repeatedly, the asking rent falling from 13.35 złoty a square metre in August 2021 to 5.94 by October 2022, and it was taken: a contract was signed on 21 November 2022 and the town announced on 20 June 2023 that the Austeria had reopened on 9 June under a five-year lease to Daniela Sabuda. Nothing published since says it has shut again, and the town has advertised no new tender, which has followed every other tenancy here. Whether a drink can be had there without a meal is unestablished, so no closure year is recorded. The national register of monuments enters the building as the former inn Austeria, dated 1771, registered on 14 January 1971 and re-entered on 1 March 2021 — a date the town's own 1781 does not match.
slazag.pl - King's TavernNatchez, Mississippi, United StatesClaimed1789Closedunknown
Natchez's oldest building, and a public house in the record from 1799: the National Register nomination gives a Spanish grant to Prosper King on 31 May 1789 as the earliest ownership record for the site, and has Richard King applying for and being granted a licence 'to keep a public house' on 6 June 1799. It traded again as King's Tavern from 2013. Its own domain expired on 26 September 2021 and was not renewed, the last archived page of the site being a parking notice, and English Wikipedia records the tavern as closed and for sale as of 2022 on the strength of a magazine list of haunted places. We have not established the year it stopped serving, so no year is recorded here and no page is published.
en.wikipedia.org
What happens to the building
A closed pub is more often converted than demolished, though not always. Listed buildings usually become houses, shops or restaurants, and the fabric that made the pub interesting outlives the licence that made it a pub. The exceptions on this list are worth naming: the Royal Fountain in Canterbury was destroyed by bombing in 1942, the Old College Bar in Glasgow burned in 2021 and was demolished six weeks later, and Tun Tavern in Philadelphia lies under an interstate. Where we can find out what a building is now, we record it; where a pub has been listed as an Asset of Community Value, that is worth knowing too, because it gives a community first refusal when it comes up for sale.
Trading status on this site is re-checked every month, and each pub page shows the date it was last looked at. A pub moves to this page only once a closure is recorded in a source we can cite, not on the strength of a rumour or a dark window.
The Top 100 counts only pubs still trading, so a closure moves the whole ranking. How we date and check a pub explains the rest.