12 pubs checked · updated 25 October 2026
The short answer
Oldest proof
On record from 1542; the building is dated to about 1677.
Grade A · DocumentedBy claim, the oldest pub in London is the White Hart on Drury Lane, whose history page puts licensed premises on its corner in 1216 and credits the Old Bailey archives with the date; the published proceedings of that court begin in 1674, and the pub itself is a rebuild of 1912. By evidence it is the George Inn in Southwark, named as an inn on a map of about 1542 and rebuilt in 1677 after the great Southwark fire. Historic England gives it "the best claim to be London's oldest pub".
London's problem is fire, and after that bombing. The Great Fire of 1666 took the City's taverns wholesale, the Southwark fire of 1676 took most of the great galleried inns of Borough High Street, and the Blitz accounted for a good deal of what stood along the river. So the honest London question is not which pub is oldest but which site has been in continuous drinking use longest, and how much of the room you are standing in is original. Historic England's 2025 review of the capital's claims makes the point again and again: the Prospect of Whitby's 1520 foundation first appears in print in the 1950s, Ye Olde Mitre's 1546 belongs to a house established in the 1770s, and the Mayflower's earliest fabric dates from the 1780s under a different name altogether. What London does have is depth of another kind — cellars, courts and alleys that have held a bar for three or four centuries, and interiors from the 1890s and 1920s good enough to be protected in their own right.
The cluster of famous old pubs west of the City is a cluster of rebuilds, and much the better for knowing it. Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese went up around 1667 in the wake of the Great Fire and was trading under its present name by 1680; its vaulted cellars may be older than the rooms above. Ye Olde Mitre belongs to the 1770s redevelopment of the Bishop of Ely’s estate, with licensees recorded from 1791, and keeps a preserved cherry-tree trunk said to mark an old boundary. The Cittie of Yorke hides a baronial hall of the 1920s behind a narrow frontage. Round the corner, the White Hart carries the boldest date in the capital — 1216, credited to the Old Bailey archives, whose published proceedings start in 1674 — above a bar rebuilt in 1912. Hand & Shears near Smithfield is a mid-nineteenth-century corner house with an 1896 fitting-out, and its multi-room plan is one of the best survivals of its kind in London.
The Thames-side pubs carry the boldest dates and the youngest buildings, which is not a coincidence: romance sells better beside water. The Prospect of Whitby at Wapping, the Mayflower at Rotherhithe and the Grapes at Limehouse are all worth the journey, and all of them are Georgian or later. Further out, Spaniards Inn on the edge of Hampstead Heath is traditionally dated 1585 with a documented history from the eighteenth century, and the Wrestlers in Highgate still performs the Swearing on the Horns twice a year in a building rebuilt in 1921. The full argument is in what is London’s oldest pub, really, there is a route through them in the London oldest pubs walk, and the background is in our guide to what a coaching inn was.
Coastlines: Natural Earth · Pub locations ©OpenStreetMap contributorsNatural Earth · ©OpenStreetMap contributors
OpenFreeMap · © OpenMapTiles · Data © OpenStreetMap contributors
Map tiles unavailable — showing the outline map.
London, England
The year is the pub's own, and it names its authority: the history page says the Old Bailey archives show this corner to have been the first and oldest licensed premises in London in 1216, and the front page carries the second half of that as a banner. On London quoted the claim in July 2022 and CAMRA's entry repeats it. The authority cannot carry it. The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, the published accounts of
London, England
The claim is made on the pub's own sign — 'Established as the site of a public house in 1430' — which On London quotes; Samuel Smith's, which runs the house, publishes no date on its website. The claim is not supported by a cited record. The cellars are associated with a 17th-century coffee house and the present building is a 1920s Tudor-style rebuild.
London, England
Historic England notes that references to a 1520 foundation did not appear until the 1950s and "may have been related to a marketing campaign rather than historical research"; the building is of the 18th and 19th centuries. The statutory list entry itself was read on 17 September 2026 and hedges in the same direction. Entry 1357505, first listed on 29 December 1950 at grade II, describes No 57 Wapping Wall as a
London, England
The 1532 is the pub's own, lettered across the top of its website as 'The Hand & Shears, est. 1532'. It is not supported by a published record, and CAMRA's note of a Smithfield link going back to 1123 is not either; the listed building is mid-19th century with an 1896 interior.
London, England
The claim is the pub's own: its about page says a pub has stood here since 1538 and that the medieval house was rebuilt in about 1667 after the Great Fire. Historic England finds no evidence for 1538; the earliest reference to the Cheshire Cheese is a broadside ballad published in 1680, consistent with rebuilding after the fire. The statutory list entry, read on 17 September 2026, puts a date on the fabric for the
London, England
The c.1542 comes from Historic England's public history writing rather than from the inn, which claims only the 16th century: Heritage Calling gives the earliest known reference to an inn on the site as a map of Southwark made around 1542, and notes John Stow's later list of 'many fair inns'. The surviving galleried range was rebuilt in 1677 after the 1676 fire; two other wings were demolished in 1889 for railway
London, England
The claim is the pub's own: its about page says the Mitre was built in 1546 for the servants of the Bishops of Ely. Historic England shows the current building dates from the 1770s redevelopment, with licensees recorded from 1791.
London, England
CAMRA repeats the tradition of an establishment here in 1547, but no documentary source is given; the present building dates from 1921. The 'Swearing on the Horns' custom is said to date from 1623. Historic England's list was searched around the pub on 17 September 2026 and has nothing for it. Twenty-three entries stand within two hundred metres of 98 North Road, among them the Bull Inn a little way along the same
London, England
The c.1550 belongs to History Hit, whose page on the pub says it was established in 1550. The pub states no year of its own: its website calls itself the oldest pub on the River Thames and its history page reaches back only as far as the seafarers who bought a pint and a postage stamp here in the 1800s, when the house was the Spread Eagle and Crown. Historic England's Heritage Calling finds no continuity with 1550 —
London, England
The claim is the pub's own: its website calls it a traditional London pub since 1583. No record is cited for that date, and the surviving narrow riverside building is 18th-century. The 1805 belongs to the blog A London Inheritance, which worked through the newspapers for Narrow Street and found the house there in the early 1800s as Mrs Horsley's Bunch of Grapes, including an advertisement of 1805 in which Mrs
London, England
The 1585 is CAMRA's, and CAMRA hedges it: the building dates back to about 1585, it says, though possibly not originally as a pub. The pub's own website gives no date. No published document supports the year, and the inn's documented history — the Gordon Riots of 1780, the 18th-century tollhouse opposite — is from the 18th century onward.
London, England
The pub carries 1602 in its name and sets out its own case for the date, arguing from the frame behind the later brick and stucco. Historic England agrees as far as it can: perhaps C17 in origin, dated 1602, with a C19 pub front, bar backs, counters and a corner fireplace of about 1900. That is fabric of the claimed age, which is a grade B; what is missing is any document of an alehouse here in 1602. Historic
