The claim
Tucked into the Teign valley, the Cridford calls itself Devon's oldest pub, dating its story to 825. In truth it was a farmhouse until 1982, but the longhouse itself is old: Historic England puts it at probably the 15th or 16th century, under a corrugated iron roof that was once thatch. A 16th-century oak mullioned window survives in the bar. Today it is a village inn with rooms.
What the records show
The building is a genuinely old listed Devon longhouse, but it was a farmhouse until it was made into a pub and restaurant in August 1982, which CAMRA's South Devon branch states as plainly as the inn does. Historic England lists it grade II, under the spelling Crideford Inn, and first listed it on 3 July 1986 — four years after the conversion, so the register knows the building as an inn and says nothing about how long it has been one. The full entry was read on 17 September 2026 and it is worth reading for three reasons. It dates the house: probably fifteenth or sixteenth century, with floors inserted in the sixteenth and seventeenth, rendered stone rubble and cob under a corrugated iron roof that was originally thatched, on a four-room plan with a curved front wall and a bowed stair projection. It describes the window the house is proud of without endorsing the claim made for it — a sixteenth-century oak mullioned window of four ogee-headed chamfered lights, with the rebate for its shutter still in the outer frame — while the house calls it possibly the earliest surviving domestic window in England, which is the house's assessment and nobody else's. And it handles the 1081 exactly as this site would: the register records that a date of 1081 in a mosaic floor beneath the cobbled floor is said to have been seen when repairs were carried out, which is a report of a report and is not a dating. The same entry is candid about how much of what a visitor sees arrived with the conversion: the leaded glass in the windows is of about 1980, the fireplace in the third room has granite jambs and an ovolo-moulded lintel brought from another building and inserted below the original one at about the same date, and a stair with solid oak treads was taken out of the fourth room then too. The 825 and the Domesday link are the inn's own claims and nothing published by anybody else supports them. The day was checked again on 29 September 2026: Historic England gives 3 July 1986, where this page had 2 July. The entry carries no date in its own text, so the register's heading is the only authority for the day.
| Year | What | Source |
|---|---|---|
| AD 825 | Claimed founding | The pub |
| 1982 | First record of a drinking house here | CAMRA's South Devon branch, on the 1982 conversion |
What to look for inside
- Medieval stained-glass mullion window in the bar
- Cobbled floor with a mosaic dated 1081, found in 1988
- Converted from a farmhouse to an inn in 1982
Visiting
The Cridford Inn is in Trusham, England, at Trusham, Newton Abbot TQ13 0NR. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.
Sources
- thecridfordinn.co.uk/history/
- camra.org.uk/pubs/cridford-inn-trusham-148771
- www.greatbritishlife.co.uk/magazines/devon/22576178.11-historical-pubs-devon-visit/
- historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1146542
- ratings.food.gov.uk/business/1085728
- web.archive.org/web/2023/https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1146542
- web.archive.org/web/20260304153622/https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1146542
Know something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Sept 2026
Run this pub? There is a badge for it
Free to put on your own site, no permission needed. It shows what the pub claims and what the records support, and it changes when the data does.
How to use it, and how to change what it says — if you have a document we have not seen, we would like to read it.
