Pint Passport
Two long wooden skittle lanes under a beamed roof, pins set at the far end of the hallPhoto: Edwardx · licence
  • Curved dark-wood bar with a hanging glass rack, brass fonts and old brewery mirrors behind

Photo: Edwardx · licence

No. 70 of the Top 100

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The Sheep Heid Inn

43-45 The Causeway, Duddingston, Edinburgh EH15 3QA

Grade C · TraditionTrading · checked Oct 2026

The Sheep Heid Inn claims 1360. No earlier record has been found.

Claimed
1360
First record
none found
Building
no single date

The building. 18th-century core with later alterations (HES LB30077).

Pub website Directions
  • Food
  • Courtyard
  • Skittles

How old is it, really?

How to read this ribbon
Claims 1360; no early record found.

Hatched: 666 years claimed with no document found yet.

The claim

In the village of Duddingston below Arthur's Seat, the Sheep Heid Inn claims to have served drinkers since about 1360, making it a contender for Scotland's oldest pub. The listed building is mainly eighteenth-century, with a courtyard and an 1880s skittle alley still in use. Royal visitors range from legendary James VI to Queen Elizabeth II in 2016.

What the records show

No documentary support for 1360 was found. The listed building is essentially 18th-century, and the James VI snuffbox story is tradition. Anthony Cooke's history of the Scottish pub finds no surviving purpose-built inn older than the 17th century.

What to look for inside

  • Skittle alley built c.1880, reputedly Scotland's oldest surviving
  • Legend of a ram's-head snuffbox given by James VI
  • Visited by Queen Elizabeth II in 2016

Visiting

The Sheep Heid Inn is in Edinburgh, Scotland, at 43-45 The Causeway, Duddingston, Edinburgh EH15 3QA. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.

thesheepheidedinburgh.co.uk Directions in your maps app

Sources

  1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep_Heid_Inn
  2. www.scotlandspubsandbars.co.uk/location/the-sheep-heid-inn/
  3. www.thesheepheidedinburgh.co.uk/
  4. www.cambridge.org/core/books/history-of-drinking/which-is-the-oldest-pub-in-scotland/00FC5807A162E376F38A30E271E8FB12
  5. camra.org.uk/pubs/sheep-heid-inn-edinburgh-150996
  6. portal.historicenvironment.scot/designation/LB30077
  7. archive.org/details/cassellsoldnewed02granuoft
  8. ratings.food.gov.uk/business/663711

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

Run this pub? There is a badge for it
Checked by OldPubs: The Sheep Heid Inn claims 1360

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.

Above: the record  ·  Below: what readers rememberThe record ends here

Raise a glass

Nobody has raised a glass to this pub yetNo glasses raised yet

One per person. It is a show of hands, not evidence.

A glass is one per person, and it never changes a date or a grade — it is a show of hands, not evidence.

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The snug

What people remember about the Sheep Heid Inn

Nobody has written about this pub yet. These are readers’ own recollections, not our records — we check documents, not memories, and a memory never moves a date or a grade.

Were you a regular here?

We are after the things a record cannot hold: the landlord’s name, what was behind the bar, the room that is not there any more, the year the fire was moved. One paragraph is plenty.

The snug opens shortly. Until it does, send it to hello@oldpubs.com and we will put it on this page with your name on it.

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