How tree-ring dating settled the question

Dr James Wright examined the claimants using tree-ring dating on the wooden beams of pubs - a process known as dendrochronology. Because medieval carpenters felled timber green and built almost immediately afterwards, the felling date gives the near date of construction, pinning each building to a specific year range.

For a pub to count, Wright required that it met all three of the following:

• •it was purpose-built as a public house
• •it had been in continuous service
• •archaeological, archival or dendrochronological evidence of significant original fabric survives

The rival claims that fall apart

Several famous claimants collapse under the method. Ye Olde Fighting Cocks in St Albans, Hertfordshire, claims establishment around AD800; the Bingley Arms in Bardsey, West Yorkshire, claims over 1,000 years; and the Royal Standard in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, claims ties to King Alfred the Great's West Saxons around AD880. Wright said the Fighting Cocks building actually started as a monastic dovecote built around 1400, and the earliest certain date it was active as a pub is the first decade of the 19th century.

Some claims rest on documents that cannot support them. As Wright put it:

In his view, most oldest-pub claims are canny marketing strategies by landlords, tenants, breweries and pub companies; the Fighting Cocks' AD793 date probably was not arrived at until 1926, when it appeared on a postcard.

The genuine medieval contenders

Applying his criteria, Wright found only about 12 to 16 genuine contenders which have been trading since the medieval period, with the oldest dating to the 14th and 15th centuries. His dated roll runs, in order:

• •George Inn, Norton St Philip, Somerset - late 14th century and 1430-32
• •Bull Hotel, Ludlow, Shropshire - 14th and 15th centuries
• •King's Head, Shrewsbury, Shropshire - 1426, then 1430-31
• •New Inn, Gloucester - 1432
• •White Hart Inn, Hook, Hampshire - 15th century
• •George Hotel, Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire - mid 15th century
• •Angel Inn, Andover, Hampshire - mid 15th century
• •Kings Head, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire - mid 15th century
• •Angel, Grantham, Lincolnshire - circa 1450
• •George and Pilgrims Inn, Glastonbury, Somerset - second half of the 15th century
• •Saracen's Head, Southwell, Nottinghamshire - 1460s
• •George Hotel, Odiham, Hampshire - late 15th century

At the head of the list, the George Inn at Norton St Philip has fabric dating from the late 14th century. Wright said its stone and timber suggest the building has been in continuous service for over 600 years, having been set up in the 14th century by monks of nearby Hinton Priory. His dated list runs from that late-14th-century George Inn to the George Hotel at Odiham, dated to the late 15th century.