Which is the oldest pub in York?

Three houses carry three different years. On the evidence the answer is Ye Olde Starre Inne, where York's record of historic buildings prints a study of the house as an inn in about 1581, sixty-three years before the 1644 on its own sign. Neither the Black Swan's 1417 nor the Golden Fleece's 1503 has a drinking record behind it.

Is Ye Olde Starre Inne really from 1644?

The year is real, and it dates a licence rather than a building. Greene King, which runs the house, prints 1644 and applied in March 2026 to letter the sign slung across Stonegate "York's oldest licensed inn". The timber core is sixteenth-century, and an inn is described at the house in about 1581.

Which York pub has the oldest fabric?

Hard to separate the top two. Historic England dates the Black Swan's front to the late sixteenth century, and York Civic Trust attributes the rebuilding to Sir Martin Bowes in 1560; the Starre Inne's timber core is dated to the sixteenth century without a year. The Golden Fleece was largely rebuilt about 1840.

Why is the Black Swan outside the Top 100?

Because drink-led trade there begins too late for the ranking. York Civic Trust and CAMRA both date its use as a public house to the late eighteenth century, after the 1750 line the list draws, and nobody has traced the year the house changed use. It keeps its page, its pin and its Grade II* listing.

Can you walk between the three?

Yes, in about a quarter of an hour. The Starre Inne is down a passage off Stonegate, the Golden Fleece faces the Shambles on Pavement, and the Black Swan stands on Peasholme Green towards the eastern edge of the old city. Check opening times on each pub's website before setting out.

3 pubs checked · updated 25 October 2026

The oldest pub in York

The short answer

Oldest claim

The Black Swan

Says 1417. No document from that date has been found.

Grade C · Tradition

Oldest proof

Ye Olde Starre Inne

On record from 1581.

Grade A · Documented

By claim, the oldest pub in York is the Black Swan on Peasholme Green, which dates itself to 1417. By evidence it is Ye Olde Starre Inne, down a passage off Stonegate, and it is the one house of the three whose record runs ahead of its own sign: Greene King prints 1644, which is a licence year, while York's record of historic buildings carries a study of the house as a large, well-stocked inn in about 1581, worked from the will and inventory of its keeper William Carter. The Golden Fleece's 1503 is a property entry in the city archives, and its first licence is dated 1668.

York has three old pubs within fifteen minutes of each other, and the interesting thing is not that two of them overstate their age but that the third understates it. Ye Olde Starre Inne advertises 1644. The city's own record of historic buildings prints something sixty-three years earlier beside it: Lisa Liddy's 2015 study of domestic objects in York, which takes the Starre Inne on Stonegate at about 1581 as its case study and works from the will and inventory of its keeper, describing glazed windows, wainscot panelling and private rooms to dine in. That is trade nobody is using. The other two run the familiar way round. The Black Swan's 1417 belongs to William Bowes, a wool merchant whose civic year York Civic Trust records — not to a building, and not to a pub, since the same trust says plainly that the house has been a public house only since the late eighteenth century. The Golden Fleece's 1503 records who owned the property, the Merchant Adventurers' Company, and York Archaeological Trust has the house known as an inn from 1656 and licensed in 1668. So the three claims run 1417, 1503 and 1644, the three records run late eighteenth century, 1668 and about 1581, and the pub with the latest year on its sign has the earliest paper behind it.

The sign that undersells the house

Ye Olde Starre Inne is reached through a passage off Stonegate, behind the shopfronts, and announces itself with a sign slung across the street on a beam first put up in 1733. The year Greene King prints is 1644, and it is a licence. What York’s record of historic buildings sets beside it is better evidence than that: the Royal Commission’s 1981 survey of the central area, dating the timber core to a two-bay range of the sixteenth century with a second framed range of the late sixteenth or early seventeenth, a red-brick wing of the early eighteenth and a further room added late in the nineteenth; and Liddy’s study of the house as an inn under William Carter at about 1581. T. P. Cooper wrote in 1897 that the inn was reputed to reach back to the reign of Henry VIII, and nothing traced carries that. Inside there is a stained glass bar screen by J. W. Knowles of York, of about 1890.

A mayoralty and a guild’s property

The Black Swan is the handsomest of the three and the youngest as a pub: twin gables and a jettied first floor over a brick inglenook, seventeenth-century panelling in the Oak Room served through a hatch to the back of the servery, and an interior CAMRA rates three stars on its national inventory, much of it the work of a prestige refit by the Tadcaster Tower brewery in the 1930s. A folk club meets upstairs under painted trompe l’oeil panelling. The Golden Fleece is a narrow brick front on Pavement under a gilded sheep, with boards by the door listing its reputed ghosts and four rooms let above. Both are worth the walk, and neither can show a drinker in the year on its sign. How the two kinds of document are weighed here is set out in how to tell how old a pub is; the spelling on two of these three signs is explained in what “Ye Olde” actually means; and the wider county comparison, including the coaching house at Boroughbridge and the inn alone on Blakey Ridge, is at the oldest pubs in North Yorkshire.

York

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The contenders, oldest claim first

ClaimProof

The Black Swan
Grade C
York, North Yorkshire
The pub's history page says the house was built for William Bowes, a merchant and Sheriff of York, in 1417, and that he became Lord Mayor in 1428. The same page says the building dates to the fifteenth century "when it was a private house", and that a medieval inn is only supposed to have stood on the site before the present one. Historic England lists the building Grade II* (list entry 1256886, first listed in
Claims 1417; no early record found; building c.1560.
The Golden Fleece
Grade B
York, North Yorkshire
York's city archives record the property in 1503, when it belonged to the Merchant Adventurers, but nothing in that entry makes it an inn. York Archaeological Trust's Jorvik pages and the Wikipedia article, following Young (2015), have it known as an inn from 1656 and licensed only in 1668, and that licence is the first firm record of drinking use. Historic England lists the standing building as a rebuilding of
Claims 1503; first recorded 1668; building c.1840.
Ye Olde Starre Inne
Grade A
York, North Yorkshire
The paper here is older than the sign. Greene King, which runs the house, says on its page that the pub was first built in 1644 and is believed to be the oldest in York, and in March 2026 it applied for permission to letter the street sign "York's oldest licensed inn". The 1644 is a licence year, not a building year, and York's own record of historic buildings says so twice over: the Royal Commission's 1981 survey
Claims 1644; first recorded 1581.

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Common questions

Which is the oldest pub in York?: Three houses carry three different years. On the evidence the answer is Ye Olde Starre Inne, where York's record of historic buildings prints a study of the house as an inn in about 1581, sixty-three years before the 1644 on its own sign. Neither the Black Swan's 1417 nor the Golden Fleece's 1503 has a drinking record behind it.
Is Ye Olde Starre Inne really from 1644?: The year is real, and it dates a licence rather than a building. Greene King, which runs the house, prints 1644 and applied in March 2026 to letter the sign slung across Stonegate "York's oldest licensed inn". The timber core is sixteenth-century, and an inn is described at the house in about 1581.
Which York pub has the oldest fabric?: Hard to separate the top two. Historic England dates the Black Swan's front to the late sixteenth century, and York Civic Trust attributes the rebuilding to Sir Martin Bowes in 1560; the Starre Inne's timber core is dated to the sixteenth century without a year. The Golden Fleece was largely rebuilt about 1840.
Why is the Black Swan outside the Top 100?: Because drink-led trade there begins too late for the ranking. York Civic Trust and CAMRA both date its use as a public house to the late eighteenth century, after the 1750 line the list draws, and nobody has traced the year the house changed use. It keeps its page, its pin and its Grade II* listing.
Can you walk between the three?: Yes, in about a quarter of an hour. The Starre Inne is down a passage off Stonegate, the Golden Fleece faces the Shambles on Pavement, and the Black Swan stands on Peasholme Green towards the eastern edge of the old city. Check opening times on each pub's website before setting out.