The claim
Four gabled bays of timber framing lean over the Bull Ring, three storeys on the left and four on the right, every floor jettied on moulded brackets. The tavern dates itself to 1365; the statutory listing and Pevsner both read the frame as seventeenth-century, and CAMRA records two houses joined into one. The ground-floor front is twentieth-century and the rooms were made over in 2012.
What the records show
The claim is the tavern's own, in the words the house supplied to the Ludlow Website's pub directory: built in the fourteenth century, with history dating back as far as 1365, and a complete makeover in 2012. The directory says plainly that its entries come from the businesses in them, which is what makes it good evidence of who is claiming and none at all of the year. No document for 1365 has been published. The fabric is read two ways and the dated reading is the later one. Historic England lists the house at Grade II*, first listed on 15 April 1954, and puts the building in the seventeenth century; the Buildings of England volume for Shropshire, by John Newman and Nikolaus Pevsner, gives the same century for the four jettied gabled bays, three storeys on the left and four on the right. CAMRA's entry says the house is fourteenth-century at its core and is two buildings joined into one — the only reading that leaves room for the claim, and the one nobody has dated. So the year is tradition and the oldest thing anybody has dated here is Stuart. The tavern's own web address stopped answering some time before 11 September 2026 and still does not resolve, on either scheme, so no link to it is published. Trading is settled and recent, and it includes a shut spell nothing here knew about: CAMRA records the house reopening on 5 December 2025 after about four months closed, surveyed it on 18 December 2025, updated the entry on 30 June 2026 with hours of noon to midnight daily and Heineken UK as freeholder, and the Food Standards Agency inspected the kitchen on 7 July 2026 and rated it five. What would settle the age is the borough and licensing material at Shropshire Archives, which is not published online.
What to look for inside
- Grade II* listed, and one of twenty-five at that grade in Ludlow
- Four jettied gables on moulded bressumers and carved consoles
- Stands on the ground where the town's bull baiting was held
Visiting
Ye Olde Bull Ring Tavern is in Ludlow, England, at 44 Bull Ring, Ludlow SY8 1AB. 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.ludlow.org.uk/pub_detail.asp?MemNo=332
- camra.org.uk/pubs/olde-bull-ring-tavern-ludlow-145111
- historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1202785
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listed_buildings_in_Ludlow_(northern_area)
- api.ratings.food.gov.uk/Establishments/1929095
- www.openstreetmap.org/node/2750346940
Know something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Oct 2026
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