The claim
Down a narrow alley from Oxford's High Street, the Chequers opens into a tall, beamed and panelled interior that its owners date to a 16th-century rebuilding of a medieval moneylender's house. The chequerboard sign recalls the money-changers once based here, and in the 17th century curious animals and new inventions were put on show for paying visitors.
What the records show
The operator says a moneylender's tenement was rebuilt as a tavern in the 1500s and that much of the interior is sixteenth-century, and CAMRA notes that the name Chequers is first recorded in 1605, which is the earliest cited record of drink sold here. A second account, the Oxford History survey of the High Street, fills in the century between them from the property records. It has the house standing in the fifteenth century as a moneylender's — the chequerboard being the old sign of the money-lending trade — bought by All Souls College in 1466, and rebuilt about 1500 as a tavern by Alderman Richard Kent, after whom it was called Kent's Hall. It then gives a dated run of occupation: John Clayton paying tax on twenty windows at the tavern in 1696, the gateway in Mr Leazenby's hands in 1772, and licensees from Howell Goddard, who held it until 1776, through William Palmer in 1791 and George Stroud from 1839 to 1861, traced in the censuses of 1841, 1851 and 1861. The widely quoted house date of 1260 appears in none of it. The grade stays at C because the rebuilding of about 1500 is a historian's dating rather than a document of trade, and the first such document is still 1605.
| Year | What | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1500 | Claimed founding | The pub |
| 1605 | First record of a drinking house here | CAMRA |
What to look for inside
- Name recalls the chequerboard used by money-changers
- 17th-century exhibitions of exotic animals and inventions
- Hidden down a passage off the High Street
Visiting
The Chequers is in Oxford, England, at Off High Street (via passage), Oxford. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.
Sources
- www.nicholsonspubs.co.uk/restaurants/southeast/thechequersoxford
- camra.org.uk/pubs/chequers-oxford-156964
- www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/high/tour/south/131_132_chequers.html
- ratings.food.gov.uk/business/268729
Know something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Sept 2026
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