Castle Arms, Castletown

The claim

A low white two-room house on the quay at Castletown, under the walls of Castle Rushen. CAMRA says it is thought to date from about 1750 and cites nothing for the year; the earliest record traced is Brown's directory of 1881, which has the Castle Arms Inn on Castle Quay under John Moore. Manx drinkers know it as the Glue Pot, for how hard it is to leave.

What the records show

The about 1750 is CAMRA's wording and CAMRA's alone — its entry says the house is thought to date from around 1750 and used by the garrison from Castle Rushen a few yards away, and cites nothing for it. Okell's, which runs the house, publishes hours and no history. Nothing read supports a house here in 1750, and the grade says so. What the printed directories do carry is later. Neither Pigot's of 1823 nor Thwaites's of 1863 names a Castle Arms among the inns of Castletown, though both list the town's houses in full; Brown's directory of 1881 has the Castle Arms Inn on Castle Quay under John Moore, and Brown's of 1894 lists Thomas Murray of the Castle Arms among the town's licensed victuallers, which makes 1881 the earliest record traced. Absence from the earlier lists is not proof the house was not there — a small quayside beerhouse could be kept by a man entered under another trade — but it is what the record shows, and it is the reason the claim is graded as tradition. The building is Registered Building No. 25 on the Manx register, registered 3 February 1984, from the English Wikipedia transcription of the register; OpenStreetMap records a registration notice for it at gov.im, which answers 404 from this machine, and the Internet Archive's copy could not be fetched because the archive was serving its offline page on 20 September 2026. Whether a drink is served without a meal is answered by the operator's published hours, noon to eleven and later at weekends, and by OpenStreetMap's amenity=pub.

Dated evidence for Castle Arms, earliest first
Year	What	Source
1750	Claimed founding	CAMRA
1881	First record of a drinking house here	CAMRA

What to look for inside

Known on the island as the Glue Pot
Drawn on the Manx five-pound note, beside Castle Rushen — CAMRA calls it the only pub in the British Isles to appear on a banknote
Castle Arms Inn on Castle Quay in Brown's directory of 1881
Registered Building No. 25, registered 3 February 1984

Visiting

Castle Arms is in Castletown, Isle of Man, at The Quay, Castletown, Isle of Man IM9 1LD. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.

okells.co.uk Directions in your maps app