Using this site
By using oldpubs.com you accept these terms. The site is published from the United Kingdom and these terms are governed by the law of England and Wales.
The site is free, and provided as it is. We may change, move or withdraw anything on it, though we try hard not to change a URL once it is live.
Accuracy, and what our dates mean
This is a history site, and history is provisional. We distinguish throughout between what a pub claims and what a document records, and we grade every claim so you can see which is which. A grade is our assessment of the published evidence at the time of writing, not a statement of fact about the pub, and it is not a judgement of the pub, its owners or its beer.
Where we describe a claim as unproven, disputed or not supported, we mean that we could not find a document to support it, or that the documents point elsewhere. That is a statement about the public record, not an accusation of dishonesty. Founding legends are usually inherited in good faith along with the freehold.
Trading status and opening information change constantly. We re-check status monthly and show the date, but we do not list opening hours, and you should always check with the pub before travelling.
If you believe anything here is wrong, please tell us. We correct promptly and log what changed.
Our content
The writing, the page designs and the illustrated façades on this site are ours, and are protected by copyright. You may quote short passages for review, news reporting, criticism, teaching or research with a clear credit and a link to the page. You may not republish substantial parts of that writing, or those designs and illustrations, without permission.
The dataset, and why you need not ask
The graded dataset we publish for download — oldest-pubs-graded.csv and oldest-pubs-graded.json, listed on the dataset page — is free to download and reuse with credit, under an open licence. The licence is inside the JSON file itself. Credit “oldpubs.com” and link to the page you took a figure from, so a reader can check it; that credit is the only condition, and nothing in these terms adds another. You may republish the whole of it, and you may build your own list of oldest pubs from it, without asking us and without our permission. That licence cannot be withdrawn once granted, so a copy you took under it stays licensed to you whatever these terms later say.
Facts are not owned by anybody, and we are pleased when the dates and sources are used elsewhere. The download is a cleaner copy than scraping would give you, which is why it exists.
Photographs and maps
Photographs are used only under open licences or in the public domain, and each is credited where it appears — beside the photograph, or under the grid of thumbnails it sits in — and listed on the image credits page. Their licences, not these terms, govern reuse. Illustrated façades are ours.
Map data is © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database Licence. Tiles are served by OpenFreeMap using OpenMapTiles. Place data is © GeoNames.
If you hold rights in an image here and believe it is used wrongly, write to hello@oldpubs.com and we will remove it while we check.
Pub names and trade marks
Pub names, logos and trade marks belong to their owners. They are used here to identify and discuss real places, which is fair and lawful, and their use does not imply any association with or endorsement by those owners. We are not affiliated with any pub, pub company or brewery listed.
Links out
We link to pubs’ own sites and to sources so you can check us. We do not control those sites and are not responsible for them, and a link is not an endorsement.
Alcohol
This site is about buildings, records and places, and is intended for adults of legal drinking age. Nothing here encourages excessive drinking. Please drink responsibly — drinkaware.co.uk.
Liability
The site is provided without warranties of any kind. We do not exclude or limit liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded. Subject to that, we are not liable for loss arising from reliance on the site — including a journey made to a pub that turns out to be shut.
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