Pint Passport

3 pubs checked · updated 18 September 2026

The oldest pub in Jersey

The short answer

Oldest claim

Moulin de Lecq

Says 1100. No document from that date has been found.

Grade C · Tradition

By claim, the oldest pub in Jersey is the Moulin de Lecq at Grève de Lecq, a converted watermill parts of which Visit Jersey dates to the twelfth century. That date belongs to the mill rather than to drinking: it worked as a mill into the early twentieth century and the pub is a later conversion. None of the three pubs here has a documented date for when it became a licensed house, so the island has no oldest-by-evidence answer yet — although the Moulin's medieval fabric makes it the best-evidenced building of the three.

All three of Jersey's contenders were something else before they were pubs, and that is what makes the island interesting rather than what makes it frustrating. The Moulin de Lecq was a working watermill on the north-west coast, its waterwheel driving stones rather than serving drinkers. The Old Smugglers Inn above Ouaisné Bay grew out of two fishermen's cottages. The Old Court House Inn at St Aubin combines a merchant's house with the former Admiralty prize court behind it, where captured cargoes were divided in what is now the restaurant. The building material throughout is granite, which weathers slowly and is repaired rather than replaced, so these are genuinely old structures whose licensing history is largely unrecorded in anything published. The twentieth century then adds a chapter that no English pub can match: during the German Occupation of 1940–45 the Moulin's wheel was requisitioned to generate electricity for searchlights, which is the most unusual use any pub in this collection has been put to.

Three buildings with earlier jobs

The Moulin de Lecq is the one to visit for the machinery: the wheel outside and the gearing inside are the pub, in a way that no amount of exposed beam elsewhere can match. The Old Smugglers Inn sits above the sandy sweep of Ouaisné Bay with original stonework, beams and fireplaces, and trades warmly on stories of landings in the bay and a lady in black. The Old Court House Inn overlooks St Aubin’s harbour and has the best claim to a documented former function, if not to a documented licence, with ten bedrooms above.

How the island fits the wider picture

Jersey’s pubs are covered by the Channel Islands branch of CAMRA rather than by any of the national heritage lists that do the heavy lifting elsewhere on this site, which is one reason the evidence here is thinner than in England or Wales. The pattern of an old building becoming a pub late is common everywhere, though, and we explain how to test it in how historians date an old pub. Our grading rules are on the methodology page.

Map of 3 old pubs in Jersey

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Jersey

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The contenders, oldest claim first

Order the contenders

  1. Moulin de Lecq

    Grade C

    Grève de Lecq, St Ouen

    Jersey's Historic Environment Record, read on 17 September 2026, is the first dating of this building from anybody but the house and the island's tourism service, and it does not support the twelfth century. The record — Government of Jersey listed building OU0093, held as heritage asset 0900093 in the parish of St Ouen — calls the house a very important survival of an early water mill, gives it phases of

    Claims 1100; no early record found.

  2. Old Smugglers Inn

    Grade C

    Ouaisné, St Brelade

    Visit Jersey and the pub say the house grew from two fishermen's cottages of the 13th century, and CAMRA repeats foundations reputedly of that date. Jersey's own Historic Environment Record, kept by Jersey Heritage, reads the building as Georgian: a good example of an 18th-century rural property, now an inn, of four bays and two storeys with two bays added to the west, granite rubble with dressed quoins and thatch

    Claims 1200; no early record found.

  3. The Old Court House Inn

    Grade C

    St Aubin, St Brelade

    The 1450 is Visit Jersey's, which says the rear building, the original court house, has parts dating back to 1450. The Liberation Group, which runs the inn, claims only history dating back to the 15th century, and CAMRA's Channel Islands guide says about 400 years old. Sources disagree and no documentary date for inn use was found.

    Locally dated 1450; no early record found; building c.1611.

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Common questions

Which is the oldest pub in Jersey?
The Moulin de Lecq makes the strongest claim, with parts of the former watermill dated by Visit Jersey to the twelfth century. The Old Court House Inn at St Aubin says its rear court-house building dates from 1450, while CAMRA's Channel Islands guide calls it about 400 years old.
What is the waterwheel at the Moulin de Lecq?
An 18-tonne wheel about 21 feet across, still turning outside the pub, with its original cogs and gearing built into the bar itself. German forces requisitioned it during the Occupation to generate electricity for searchlights, which is why it survived.
Is the Old Smugglers Inn really from the thirteenth century?
It grew from two fishermen's cottages that both Visit Jersey and the pub date to the thirteenth century, and CAMRA reports foundations reputedly of that date. When the cottages became a licensed house is not documented in any source we could find.
What is the Old Court House Inn's connection to privateering?
Its rear building served as an Admiralty prize court, and prize cargoes were divided in what is now the restaurant, with the cellars said to have held privateers' plunder. There is a 27-foot well in the floor, a defensive granite spiral stair and a bar made from a tender of the yacht Westward.