The Porch House, Stow-on-the-Wold

The Porch House

Digbeth Street, Stow-on-the-Wold GL54 1BN

Grade C · TraditionTrading · checked Sept 2026

The Porch House claims AD 947. No earlier record has been found.

Claimed

AD 947

First record

none found

Building

no single date

The building. A radiocarbon date of c. AD 1000 (±50) is widely repeated from 1970s works, but no report has been published and the county archaeologist holds no record of samples being taken; English Heritage (2005) attributes the standing building to the 15th century — we give it no single date because the c. AD 1000 radiocarbon date has no published report; English Heritage dates the standing building to the 15th century.

Rooms

Food

Real ale

Dog friendly

Beer garden

The claim

On the Cotswold hilltop town's Digbeth Street, the Porch House trades on a Guinness-endorsed claim to be England's oldest inn, dated to 947. Historians dispute that date, but the honey-stone building, with its low beams, witch marks and inglenooks, is an undeniably ancient place for a pint. Long known as the Royalist Hotel, it now combines bar, restaurant and bedrooms.

What the records show

The 947 is the house's own claim, though it has faded from its website: the current site says only 'England's oldest inn' and eleven centuries, while the history page archived in September 2020 gave the tradition that part of the building was a hospice built for Aethelmar, Duke of Cornwall in 947AD, quoting a local history published in 2000. The date rests on that tradition. The radiocarbon test usually cited in support cannot be traced: the buildings archaeologist James Wright asked the county archaeologist, who has no record of any samples being taken from the building, and no report has been published. Guinness World Records no longer maintains an oldest-pub category. English Heritage dates the standing building to the 15th century, and no record of an inn here (the Eagle and Child) appears before the 18th century.

What to look for inside

Guinness World Records recognition as England's oldest inn
Formerly the Eagle and Child and then the Royalist Hotel
A radiocarbon date of c. AD 1000 is often quoted; no report has been published

Visiting

The Porch House is in Stow-on-the-Wold, England, at Digbeth Street, Stow-on-the-Wold GL54 1BN. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.

porch-house.co.uk Directions in your maps app

Sources

Know something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Sept 2026

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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.

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