The claim
A three-storey inn on the Parade at Castletown, a few steps from Castle Rushen and the old House of Keys. Visit Isle of Man dates the building to 1833, but a George Inn was letting carriages and saddle horses on the same square in the directories of 1811 and 1823, and Brown's of 1881 called it one of the town's two good hotels. Rooms upstairs, cask ale at the bar, food all day.
What the records show
The only year anybody publishes for this house is 1833, and it is not the pub's: Visit Isle of Man, the island government's tourism site, calls the George a registered historic building dating back to 1833. The house's own site gives no date at all. The printed directories put an inn of the name on the same square a generation earlier. Holden's directory, taken from a Manx Museum copy dated 1811, lists James Downes as innkeeper of the George Inn at Castletown and names the George among the four inns of the island; Pigot's directory of 1823 heads the town's inns and hotels with the George Inn and Hotel on the Market Place, letting carriages and saddle horses, one of only two houses in the list; Thwaites's history and directory of 1863 has Robert B. Wood at the George Commercial and Family Hotel, Market Place; Brown's directory of 1881 says the town possesses two good hotels, the George and the Union, and gives John Gilbert as proprietor of the George Hotel on the Market Place; and Brown's of 1894 lists Walter Holden of the George Hotel among Castletown's licensed victuallers. All six are transcribed on the Manx Note Book. The house is Registered Building No. 38, registered on 3 February 1984, in the Manx register as transcribed in the English Wikipedia list of registered buildings; the register's own notice for it could not be read, because every gov.im media link answers 404 from this machine and the Internet Archive was returning its offline page on 20 September 2026, so the fabric is not independently dated here and the 1833 stands as somebody's account rather than a reading of the register. Whether a drink is served without a meal is answered by the house itself: its site publishes bar hours from noon to eleven, Sunday to ten, and OpenStreetMap tags the building amenity=pub.
| Year | What | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1833 | Claimed founding | Local history |
| 1811 | First record of a drinking house here | Wikipedia |
What to look for inside
- James Downes kept the George Inn here in Holden's directory of 1811
- One of only two Castletown inns in Pigot's directory of 1823
- Registered Building No. 38, registered 3 February 1984
Visiting
The George is in Castletown, Isle of Man, at The Parade, Castletown, Isle of Man IM9 1LG. 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.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/fulltext/hdn1811.htm
- www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/fulltext/pg1823/ca.htm
- www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/fulltext/tg1863/ca.htm
- www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/fulltext/bd1881/ca.htm
- www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/fulltext/bd1894/ca.htm
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registered_Buildings_and_Conservation_Areas_of_the_Isle_of_Man
- www.visitisleofman.com/food-and-drink/the-george-p1292771
- www.thegeorge.im/
- www.openstreetmap.org/way/100018176
Know something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Sept 2026
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