Which is the oldest pub in New Zealand?

The Duke of Marlborough at Russell claims the earliest history, a grog shop of 1827 and the country's first liquor licence in 1840, without published documentation for either. Its present building dates from 1875 and was moved onto the site in 1932, so the fabric is not original.

Which New Zealand pub is in its original building?

The Moutere Inn at Upper Moutere near Nelson, built in 1850 by the German settler Cordt Bensemann as a house. Its claim is specifically to be the oldest pub still in its original building, conceding that older licences exist elsewhere in rebuilt or relocated premises.

Which is Wellington's oldest tavern?

The Thistle Inn in Thorndon, first opened in 1840 and rebuilt after an 1866 fire on the same site. The Dominion Post called it in 2015 the oldest tavern and restaurant in New Zealand still operating on its original site, and Heritage New Zealand lists it as a Category 1 Historic Place. Katherine Mansfield was a regular.

Which pub has the second liquor licence in New Zealand?

Two claim it, which tells you how firm the evidence is. The Thistle Inn says it holds the country's second licence, and the Riverhead near Auckland makes the same claim for its 1857 founding by Thomas William Deacon. Neither claim rests on a published record.

8 pubs checked · updated 18 September 2026

The oldest pub in New Zealand

The short answer

Oldest claim

Duke of Marlborough Hotel

Says 1827. No document from that date has been found.

Grade C · Tradition

Oldest proof

Thistle Inn

On record from 1840; the building is dated to about 1866.

Grade A · Documented

By claim, the oldest pub in New Zealand is the Duke of Marlborough on the waterfront at Russell, which traces itself to an ex-convict's grog shop of 1827 and claims the country's first liquor licence, issued in 1840. Neither has been published, and the building standing there today was put up elsewhere in 1875 and hauled onto the site in 1932. By evidence the earliest documented licence belongs to the Puhoi Pub north of Auckland, recorded as receiving one in 1879, when it was the German Hotel.

New Zealand's oldest-pub question is dominated by fire, war and the remarkable colonial habit of moving buildings bodily from one place to another. The Duke of Marlborough's first building burned in the 1845 Battle of Kororāreka, its successor burned in 1931, and the present one arrived in 1932 dragged into place by a steam traction engine. Wellington's Thistle Inn burned in 1866 and was rebuilt as a two-storey tavern within months, on the same site — which by then was no longer on the harbour's edge, because the 1855 earthquake and subsequent reclamation had pushed the shoreline away. The Cardrona Hotel in Otago sat derelict from about 1961 until a restoration in the 1980s. What all this means is that the country's oldest licences and its oldest buildings belong to different pubs, and the Moutere Inn near Nelson makes the most carefully worded claim of the six: not the oldest pub, but the oldest pub still in its original building.

Fire, war and traction engines

The Duke of Marlborough stands on the waterfront of what was once the whaling port of Kororāreka, a place with a genuine reputation for lawlessness, and its history is a sequence of disasters survived. The Thistle Inn is the better-documented survivor: a timber tavern that has stood on the same Thorndon site since 1840 through fire, earthquake and land reclamation, and which carries the country’s highest heritage classification. The Cardrona Hotel is the gold-rush relic, one of four hotels in a valley that now has almost nothing, and its long-serving publican Jimmy Patterson is said to have rationed drinkers according to how far they had to get home.

The quieter cases

The Moutere Inn is the most honest claimant here and now a craft beer free house with thirteen rotating taps and wine from within ten kilometres. The Riverhead was the wharf where settlers headed north before roads and railways, restored over 2010–11. The Puhoi Pub has the only firmly recorded licence date on the page, 1879, and sits inside a historic village zone created in 1976. For the comparison with Australia, where the records are better and the arguments louder, see the oldest pubs in Australia; our grading rules are on the methodology page.

New Zealand

Open the full map

The contenders, oldest claim first

ClaimProof

Duke of Marlborough Hotel
Grade C
Russell, Northland
The hotel traces itself to Johnny Johnston's grog shop of 1827 — an ex-convict, well regarded locally, in its own telling — and claims New Zealand's first liquor licence, issued in 1840. Neither has been traced to a document, and no entry on the New Zealand Heritage List for the building could be found. Two buildings were lost before this one: the first burned in the Battle of Kororāreka in 1845 and a successor in
Claims 1827; no early record found; building c.1875.
Horeke Hotel
Grade C
Horeke, Northland
The claim is the hotel's, reported by the New Zealand Herald: the Horeke claims to be the country's oldest surviving pub, with a history dating to 1833, though the Herald adds that it was not legally licensed then. RNZ (2018) notes parts may date to the 1820s shipbuilding era. No documentary evidence has been published. The Herald described it in 2020 as trading with food and lodging, and the Bay of Islands tourism
Claims 1833; no early record found.
Thistle Inn
Grade A
Wellington, New Zealand
Heritage New Zealand's list entry for the Thistle Inn, number 1439, a Category 1 historic place entered on 27 July 1988, was read on 17 September 2026 and settles the 1840. It records that the first Thistle Inn opened on town acre 515 in October 1840, that the section had become the property of Dudley Sinclair by ballot on 1 August 1839, and that the landlord was transferred by Sinclair in September 1841 — a
Claims 1840; first recorded 1840; building c.1866.
Moutere Inn
Grade B
Upper Moutere, Tasman
Wikipedia and RNZ give 1850 for the building, which Cordt Bensemann put up as a house (RNZ). The claim is 'oldest pub in NZ in its original building', conceding that older licences exist elsewhere in rebuilt or moved premises. The date licensed drinking began is unconfirmed.
Claims 1850; no early record found; building c.1850.
The Kentish Hotel
Grade A
Waiuku, Auckland
Wikipedia's Waiuku article says settler Edward Constable built it as an inn in 1851 or early 1852, and calls it New Zealand's longest continuously licensed hotel. RNZ (2018) says it has 'the best claim' to be NZ's oldest existing pub. Trading in 2026 is unconfirmed, and we could not reach a working website for it in September 2026.
Claims 1851; first recorded 1853; building c.1851.
The Riverhead
Grade C
Riverhead, Auckland
The owners' history says Thomas William Deacon established the house in 1857 and claims New Zealand's second-oldest liquor licence, which the Thistle Inn in Wellington also claims; no licensing record has been traced for either. The New Zealand Herald, reporting the tavern's sale on 10 October 2019, gives the same year — the house began trading in 1857 and is believed to be the country's oldest riverside tavern —
Claims 1857; no early record found.
Cardrona Hotel
Grade C
Cardrona, Otago
Heritage New Zealand lists the Cardrona Hotel's false front, and only the false front, as a Category 2 historic place entered on 15 December 2011. Its entry says the building dates from the 1860s, when Cardrona was a busy gold-mining community, that it was originally called the Empire Hotel after a nearby claim, and that it was renamed the Cardrona Hotel only in 1926. It was one of four hotels serving the
Claims 1863; first recorded 1876.
Puhoi Pub & Hotel
Grade A
Puhoi, Auckland
The hotel first took a permanent liquor licence in 1879, when it was called the German Hotel, a nod to the Bohemian and German-speaking settlers of the valley; Wikipedia records the year and the north Auckland paper Local Matters names the licensee, John Schollum. The same paper adds something no other account here carried: a watering hole of a sort existed six years earlier, when an Irishman, Andrew Meaney, took a
Claims 1879; first recorded 1879.

The photographs above are other people's work, used under open licences, or in the public domain. Every photographer, licence and source page is named in the image credits.

Common questions

Which is the oldest pub in New Zealand?: The Duke of Marlborough at Russell claims the earliest history, a grog shop of 1827 and the country's first liquor licence in 1840, without published documentation for either. Its present building dates from 1875 and was moved onto the site in 1932, so the fabric is not original.
Which New Zealand pub is in its original building?: The Moutere Inn at Upper Moutere near Nelson, built in 1850 by the German settler Cordt Bensemann as a house. Its claim is specifically to be the oldest pub still in its original building, conceding that older licences exist elsewhere in rebuilt or relocated premises.
Which is Wellington's oldest tavern?: The Thistle Inn in Thorndon, first opened in 1840 and rebuilt after an 1866 fire on the same site. The Dominion Post called it in 2015 the oldest tavern and restaurant in New Zealand still operating on its original site, and Heritage New Zealand lists it as a Category 1 Historic Place. Katherine Mansfield was a regular.
Which pub has the second liquor licence in New Zealand?: Two claim it, which tells you how firm the evidence is. The Thistle Inn says it holds the country's second licence, and the Riverhead near Auckland makes the same claim for its 1857 founding by Thomas William Deacon. Neither claim rests on a published record.