Which is the oldest pub in Canterbury?

On drinking records, the Unicorn on St Dunstan's Street. Its own history and Kent's record of historic buildings both have Isaac Buesden applying in 1664 for a licence to sell ale from the premises, and the house in the city's licensing list of 1692. The Parrot's hall is older and has been a pub only since 1987.

Is the Parrot really from 1370?

That year dates the building and comes from a regional heritage account. The Canterbury Historical and Archaeological Society dates the same hall to the fifteenth century and says virtually nothing of its early history is known. CAMRA records that the house became a pub in 1987, when it was Simple Simon's.

Is the Unicorn from 1604?

CAMRA's Canterbury branch prints 1604 and the booking pages repeat it; the pub's own history names no such year. It gives 1593 for the house Robert Budden built and 1664 for the first licence to sell ale from it, and Kent's record of historic buildings agrees on both of those.

What does Ye Olde Beverlie's 1570 date?

The house Sir Roger Manwood built beside his almshouses on St Stephen's Green, which CAMRA gives and Historic England lists the inn as being said to share; inn and almshouses are listed as a group. The listing narrows it — only the crow-stepped west gable looks of that date, and the front is eighteenth-century.

Can you walk between the three?

Ye Olde Beverlie and the Unicorn both stand outside the old walls to the north-west, a quarter of an hour apart on foot; the Parrot is inside them, in Church Lane off St Radigund's. Our Canterbury walk takes two of the three and goes on into the Stour marshes.

3 pubs checked · updated 25 October 2026

The oldest pub in Canterbury

The short answer

Oldest claim

The Parrot

Says 1370. The first record is 1987.

Grade C · Tradition

Oldest proof

The Unicorn Inn

On record from 1664; the building is dated to about 1593.

Grade B · Building dated

By claim, the oldest pub in Canterbury is the Parrot in the St Radigund's quarter, which fills a timber Wealden hall that a regional heritage account dates to about 1370 and the Canterbury Historical and Archaeological Society to the fifteenth century. By evidence it is the Unicorn outside the Westgate, where Isaac Buesden applied in 1664 for a licence to sell ale from a house his father had bought in 1638. The Parrot has been a pub only since 1987, so the oldest building on this page belongs to its youngest pub.

Canterbury's three old pubs run in reverse. Put them in order of their buildings and the Parrot comes first, in a timber hall of the fourteenth or fifteenth century; then Ye Olde Beverlie, whose crow-stepped west gable is the only part its listing reads as belonging to Sir Roger Manwood's 1570; then the Unicorn, a house built in 1593 for the woollen draper Robert Budden. Put them in order of drinking and the list turns round completely. The Unicorn has an ale licence applied for in 1664 and appears in the city's licensing list of 1692. Ye Olde Beverlie is recorded in use as an inn from 1740, when it was known simply as the Hospital, and took the Beverly name in 1839. The Parrot became a pub in 1987, after a century put to other uses: tenements by 1900, saved from demolition as unfit for habitation in 1937, then a girls' club, an annexe to the art college and a burger bar. For a city whose name is attached to a poem about pilgrims on the road, nothing here can show ale sold before the 1660s. The medieval carpentry is real; the medieval drinking was somewhere else.

The newest arrival keeps the oldest record

The Unicorn is the last of the three to be researched for this site and carries the earliest drinking on it. Three parties print three different years for the house, and the house itself prints both the earliest and the latest: 1593 for the building Robert Budden, a woollen draper who owned two other properties in the city, put up; 1638 for the sale by his widow to the leather merchant Solomon Buesden; and 1664 for the application by Solomon’s son Isaac to sell ale from the premises, after which it was known as an ale house in St Dunstan’s. Kent’s record of historic buildings tells the same story from the other side and adds what came next — the Unicorn in the licensing list of 1692, the billeting list offering it four soldiers the year after, a sale to the Longport brewer Philip Watson in 1763, and two spells in the eighteenth century with a reputation as a bawdy house. CAMRA gives the interior one star on its national inventory; there are five handpumps, one of them for cider, and bar billiards in the corner.

A hall, an almshouse and a hundred years out of the trade

The Parrot and Ye Olde Beverlie are the pair the county is usually asked about, and they are set against each other on the oldest pubs in Kent. What is worth adding here is how differently the two have spent their time. The Parrot’s hall — St Radigund’s Hall, named for the monks of St Radigund at Bradsole near Dover — was divided into tenements, saved from demolition as unfit for habitation in 1937, and put to three other uses before a licence arrived in 1987, and there is a fragment of old wall still standing in front of it. The Beverlie has sat in the same company throughout: Manwood’s almshouses next door, an annual December meeting still held to help the parish’s elderly, a walled garden reputed to be where the Kentish game of bat and trap began, and three names across two centuries. There is a route past both in our Canterbury pubs walk, and one house the city has lost is recorded at the Royal Fountain Hotel.

Canterbury

Open the full map

The contenders, oldest claim first

ClaimProof

The Parrot
Grade C
Canterbury, Kent
The c.1370 is a local heritage blog's dating of the building, a Wealden hall known as St Radigund's Hall, said to have been built on Roman foundations and restored after narrowly escaping demolition in the 1930s; CAMRA calls it a 14th-century gem and the oldest building in Canterbury but names no year, and the pub's own site gives no date at all. CAMRA records that it only became a pub in 1987, so there is no
Locally dated 1370; first recorded 1987.
Ye Olde Beverlie
Grade B
Canterbury, Kent
The 1570 is not the pub's own date. CAMRA gives it, crediting the house to Sir Roger Manwood, who built it in 1570 along with the almshouses next door, and Historic England lists the inn Grade II as said to be of the same date as those almshouses; inn and almshouses are listed as a group. The listing also narrows the claim, because the only fabric of that period visible from outside is the crow-stepped gable in the
Dated 1570 by CAMRA; first recorded 1740; building c.1570.
The Unicorn Inn
Grade B
Canterbury, Kent
Three parties print three different years, and the pub itself prints the earliest and the latest. CAMRA's Canterbury branch calls the Unicorn a comfortable old 1604 pub and the booking pages repeat that year; the house's own history page names no 1604 at all. It has the building put up in 1593 as a house for Robert Budden, a woollen draper who owned two other properties in the city, sold by his widow in 1638 to the
Dated 1604 by CAMRA; first recorded 1664; building c.1593.

Photo credits

Common questions

Which is the oldest pub in Canterbury?: On drinking records, the Unicorn on St Dunstan's Street. Its own history and Kent's record of historic buildings both have Isaac Buesden applying in 1664 for a licence to sell ale from the premises, and the house in the city's licensing list of 1692. The Parrot's hall is older and has been a pub only since 1987.
Is the Parrot really from 1370?: That year dates the building and comes from a regional heritage account. The Canterbury Historical and Archaeological Society dates the same hall to the fifteenth century and says virtually nothing of its early history is known. CAMRA records that the house became a pub in 1987, when it was Simple Simon's.
Is the Unicorn from 1604?: CAMRA's Canterbury branch prints 1604 and the booking pages repeat it; the pub's own history names no such year. It gives 1593 for the house Robert Budden built and 1664 for the first licence to sell ale from it, and Kent's record of historic buildings agrees on both of those.
What does Ye Olde Beverlie's 1570 date?: The house Sir Roger Manwood built beside his almshouses on St Stephen's Green, which CAMRA gives and Historic England lists the inn as being said to share; inn and almshouses are listed as a group. The listing narrows it — only the crow-stepped west gable looks of that date, and the front is eighteenth-century.
Can you walk between the three?: Ye Olde Beverlie and the Unicorn both stand outside the old walls to the north-west, a quarter of an hour apart on foot; the Parrot is inside them, in Church Lane off St Radigund's. Our Canterbury walk takes two of the three and goes on into the Stour marshes.