Royal Oak, Cardington

Royal Oak

Cardington, Church Stretton SY6 7JZ

Grade C · TraditionTrading · checked Sept 2026

Royal Oak is dated 1400 by CAMRA. The records say 1800.

Claimed

1400

First record

1800

Building

no single date

The building. House, now inn: mid-C17 timber framing with painted brick nogging, with late C19 and early C20 alterations; former stable and coach house adjoining — we give it no single date because Historic England gives mid-C17 for the house without a year.

Real ale

Food

Village

Fireplaces

Walkers

The claim

A low timber-framed inn on the green of a hill village under Caer Caradoc, with a flagged bar, a wide inglenook and up to four cask ales. Food is home-made and the kitchen keeps village hours, closing on Mondays. Walkers come off the Stretton hills for it.

What the records show

The Royal Oak is reputed to be the longest continuously licensed pub in Shropshire, and CAMRA gives it a 15th-century date. Historic England reads the building as a mid-C17 timber-framed house, later an inn, with a former stable and coach house alongside and a pump outside listed in its own right. The Victoria County History of Shropshire agrees about the building and answers the licensing: it names the Royal Oak among the late 16th and early 17th-century timber-framed houses of Cardington village, and dates its licence to about 1800, the same decade as the New Inn by the vicarage. Alesellers are recorded in the parish at Cardington, Lydley Hayes, Plaish and Willstone in the early 17th century, and the county history names no tavern in the parish earlier than one at Enchmarsh in 1256, not here. So the house is old and the licence is Georgian, and nothing supports drinking here in the 15th century.

Dated evidence for Royal Oak, earliest first
Year	What	Source
1400	Claimed founding	CAMRA
1800	First record of a drinking house here	Historic England

What to look for inside

Reputed to be Shropshire's longest continuously licensed pub
Former stable and coach house alongside
Under Caer Caradoc in the Stretton hills

Visiting

Royal Oak is in Cardington, England, at Cardington, Church Stretton SY6 7JZ. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.

at-the-oak.com Directions in your maps app