The claim
Right on the harbour wharf at St Ives, the Sloop claims to have poured drinks since around 1312, making it one of Cornwall's oldest inns. Slate floors and low beams fill three bars hung with work by local artists, recalling its days as a haunt of the St Ives painters. Outside tables look straight over the boats.
What the records show
'Reputedly from 1312' is repeated by CAMRA and the inn itself, and the building is a 17th- and 18th-century house. Historic England's listing, read on 17 September 2026, says so in as many words: the Sloop is listed Grade II, first listed on 4 June 1952, and described as C17-18, low and L-shaped, of colourwashed granite rubble with a tarred plinth, two storeys, slate-hung above the ground floor on the sides of the projecting right-hand wing, under a half-hipped slate roof, and grouped with Slipway Cottage and Sloop Cottage behind. John Hobson Matthews, writing the history of the parish in 1892 from the borough's own records, calls the Sloop an old inn on the Wharf and says it was anciently the home of the Williams family, without putting a date to either — while dating neighbouring houses in the same chapter from their inscriptions. No medieval record of drinking here has been traced.
What to look for inside
- Harbourfront on The Wharf
- Long associated with the St Ives artists' colony
Visiting
The Sloop Inn is in St Ives, England, at The Wharf, St Ives TR26 1LP. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.
Sources
- camra.org.uk/pubs/sloop-inn-st-ives-139228
- www.sloop-inn.co.uk/
- ratings.food.gov.uk/business/530398
- archive.org/details/ahistoryparishe00mattgoog
- historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1327836
Then and now
Photographed about 1931, and today. The Sloop in 1931, when Samuel Rogers held the licence.
Photo: Unknown photographer (scan by Mark Crombie) · public domainKnow 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.
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