The claim
A stone house on a hilltop above the Radnor Valley, beside the church of St Stephen, with slate floors, oak beams and antique settles. The pub says it has offered hospitality since the sixteenth century, which is the period Cadw gives for the fabric. Cadw calls it a former cross-passage house rather than the longhouse the guidebooks describe, its byre end rebuilt for living in by the Landmark Trust in 1971.
What the records show
Widely described elsewhere as an early fifteenth-century inn, including by CAMRA, but the pub itself says only that it has offered hospitality since the sixteenth century. Cadw's full report agrees with the pub and not with the guidebooks: the house is of the sixteenth or seventeenth century, a former cross-passage timber-framed dwelling whose walls were rebuilt in rubble stone, with large-panel framing still showing on the rear wall and on the partition beside the old passage, scroll-stopped beams, a rubble-lined fireplace with a brick bread oven, and flagged floors throughout. It has been listed at grade II since 15 February 1993, for its group value with the parish church in a fine landscape setting. Two smaller corrections follow from the same report. Cadw does not call the building a longhouse, which is the word almost everyone else uses; and it dates the Landmark Trust's rebuilding of the byre and barn end to 1971, where this page and others had 1972. What remains undocumented is the drinking: no record of ale sold here in the sixteenth century has been traced, which is why this stays a grade B.
| Year | What | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1500 | Claimed founding | The pub |
| c.1500 | Present building | https://camra.org.uk/pubs/harp-inn-old-radnor-156796 |
What to look for inside
- A Welsh longhouse with slate floors and oak beams, beside the C15 church of St Stephen
- Rescued by the Landmark Trust in 1972
Visiting
The Harp Inn is in Old Radnor, Wales, at Old Radnor, Powys LD8 2RH. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.
Sources
- harpinnoldradnor.co.uk/
- camra.org.uk/pubs/harp-inn-old-radnor-156796
- www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q29487959
- cadwpublic-api.azurewebsites.net/reports/listedbuilding/FullReport?lang=en&id=9132
- ratings.food.gov.uk/business/178936
Know something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Sept 2026
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