Which is the oldest pub in Douglas?

On the records traced, the Saddle Inn at 2 Queen Street. Pigot's directory of 1837 lists a Saddle in Queen Street kept by Philip Cain, who appears in the same book as a livery stable keeper in that street, and Brown's directory of 1881 gives the house the address it still has.

Is the Old Market Inn really from 1852?

CAMRA's Isle of Man branch says so and cites nothing for it. The printed directories pick the house up in 1863 under James Roney in Chapel Row and never lose it; Pigot's of 1837 names two other licensed houses in that row and no Old Market. Neither finding contradicts 1852.

Are any of the three on the Manx register of buildings?

One is. The Queens is Registered Building No. 201, registered on 20 September 2002, and the register's own account has the house standing before 1826 and called the Queen's Hotel by 1854. That notice could not be read from here, so its wording is known through a transcription rather than at first hand.

Where do you find Manx cask ale among them?

At the Old Market Inn, where all three handpumps pour Bushy's and a special grog is brewed for the TT. CAMRA's survey of October 2024 records cask ale withdrawn at the Saddle, and Okell's ales are on the bar at the Queens out on the promenade. Check current hours with each house.

How far apart are they?

The Saddle and the Old Market are a few minutes apart at the harbour end of town, one where Queen Street meets the North Quay and the other on Chapel Row above the sea terminal. The Queens is a longer walk north, at the far end of Douglas bay beyond Castle Mona.

3 pubs checked · updated 25 October 2026

The oldest pub in Douglas

The short answer

Oldest claim

The Saddle Inn

Says 1837. The first record is 1837.

Grade A · Documented

In Douglas the oldest claim and the earliest record belong to the same house, and nobody is making the claim: the Saddle Inn at the foot of Queen Street publishes no founding year at all, and its 1837 is our own earliest reading, from Pigot's directory of that year. The Old Market Inn is recorded by CAMRA as first licensed in 1852 and appears in print in 1863. The Queens stands in a building the Manx register dates before 1826 and records as the Queen's Hotel by 1854. All three are graded A, and all three are Victorian.

Douglas inverts the usual shape of a page on this site. The arguments here are normally about centuries; in the island's capital they are about a decade. The three houses carry no legend between them, they are dated from printed trade directories that name a sign, a street and whoever kept the house, and each sits at grade A on a record within a generation of the year claimed. The earliest of those records is 1837 and the latest 1854 — seventeen years end to end. What passes for a dispute is the eleven-year gap at the Old Market Inn, which CAMRA's Isle of Man branch records as first licensed in 1852 without naming a source, and which the directories do not find until 1863, under James Roney in Chapel Row. The Saddle makes no claim at all: neither the pub, nor the brewery that supplies it, nor CAMRA prints a year, so the 1837 on its row is a reading rather than an assertion. Only the Queens separates its building from its trade, and modestly — a house standing before 1826, probably put up as cottages and stables for Castle Mona next door, and called the Queen's Hotel by 1854. None of this is modest evidence; it is simply evidence nobody has had to inflate.

Three houses and no legend

The Saddle Inn is a narrow three-storey house where the shopping streets run down to the North Quay, named for the saddlers and livery stables that filled that end of town — and Philip Cain, who kept the inn in 1837, kept the stables in the same street, which is the kind of detail that identifies a house rather than decorating it. It is a locals’ pub now, with racing on the television and a Thursday karaoke. The Old Market Inn has one of the smallest bars on the island serving two rooms, a few steps up from the sea terminal on the corner of Chapel Row, and a painting of a market scene above the front bar that came to light when a later picture was taken off it. The Queens is a promenade house at the north end of the bay, in a building raised for the estate next door long before anybody thought of selling drink in it; the bar there outlasts the kitchen by about three hours.

What a directory can and cannot settle

A trade directory gives a name, a street and a keeper, and in a town this size those three are usually enough to join one decade to the next and arrive at a bar you can stand at now. What a directory cannot do is say when a house opened, and it is quite capable of putting it in the wrong place: Brown’s of 1894 prints the Old Market at 1 Chapel Row, and the pub trades at number 2 today, which is either a shift in the numbering or a compositor a door out. Nor does it describe a building, which is why the Queens — the one house here with a register entry behind it — has fabric older than any drinking recorded in it. The island’s wider record, and the two Castletown houses that reach further back than anything in Douglas, are at the oldest pubs on the Isle of Man. Why a building’s date and a licence’s date are different facts is set out in how to tell how old a pub is, and the grading itself in the methodology.

Douglas

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The contenders, oldest claim first

ClaimProof

The Saddle Inn
Grade A
Douglas, Isle of Man
Nothing published states a founding year for the Saddle. CAMRA's entry calls it one of the oldest pubs in Douglas and gives no date, the brewery's venue page gives none, and the year on this row is our own earliest reading rather than anybody's claim. Pigot's directory of 1837, transcribed on the Manx Note Book, lists a Saddle in Queen Street among the inns and hotels of Douglas, kept by Philip Cain, who appears in
1837 with no published claimant; first recorded 1837.
Old Market Inn
Grade A
Douglas, Isle of Man
CAMRA's Isle of Man branch records the house as first licensed in 1852 and gives no source for the year; the printed Manx directories, transcribed on the Manx Note Book, pick it up eleven years later and then never lose it. Thwaites's guide and directory of 1863 lists an Old Market Inn kept by James Roney in Chapel Row, among the hotels, inns and taverns of Douglas. Brown's directory of 1881 has James McClellan at
Dated 1852 by CAMRA; first recorded 1863.
The Queens
Grade A
Douglas, Isle of Man
Registered Building No. 201 on the Isle of Man's register, registered on 20 September 2002, describes the house as a public house built before 1826, probably first as cottages and stables for Castle Mona, and called the Queen's Hotel by 1854. That 1854 is the earliest record of drink-led trade traced here and is what the row is graded on. The register's own notice could not be read: every gov.im media link tried
Dated 1854 by its listing; first recorded 1854.

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Common questions

Which is the oldest pub in Douglas?: On the records traced, the Saddle Inn at 2 Queen Street. Pigot's directory of 1837 lists a Saddle in Queen Street kept by Philip Cain, who appears in the same book as a livery stable keeper in that street, and Brown's directory of 1881 gives the house the address it still has.
Is the Old Market Inn really from 1852?: CAMRA's Isle of Man branch says so and cites nothing for it. The printed directories pick the house up in 1863 under James Roney in Chapel Row and never lose it; Pigot's of 1837 names two other licensed houses in that row and no Old Market. Neither finding contradicts 1852.
Are any of the three on the Manx register of buildings?: One is. The Queens is Registered Building No. 201, registered on 20 September 2002, and the register's own account has the house standing before 1826 and called the Queen's Hotel by 1854. That notice could not be read from here, so its wording is known through a transcription rather than at first hand.
Where do you find Manx cask ale among them?: At the Old Market Inn, where all three handpumps pour Bushy's and a special grog is brewed for the TT. CAMRA's survey of October 2024 records cask ale withdrawn at the Saddle, and Okell's ales are on the bar at the Queens out on the promenade. Check current hours with each house.
How far apart are they?: The Saddle and the Old Market are a few minutes apart at the harbour end of town, one where Queen Street meets the North Quay and the other on Chapel Row above the sea terminal. The Queens is a longer walk north, at the far end of Douglas bay beyond Castle Mona.