If you find yourself wandering through Nottingham, past the shadow of the castle and toward the jagged sandstone cliffs, you'll see a white-painted building tucked right into the rock. It looks old. Honestly, it looks like it's being swallowed by the earth. This is Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, and if the painted sign on the exterior is to be believed, it has been serving pints since 1189 AD.
That’s a long time.
Think about that date for a second. 1189. That is the year Richard the Lionheart took the throne. It’s the era of the Third Crusade. But is it actually the oldest pub in England? That is where things get complicated, messy, and frankly, a bit more interesting than just a marketing slogan.
The Cave-Dwelling Heart of Nottingham
Most pubs have a cellar. Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem is basically just a series of cellars that someone decided to put a roof on. The building is famously "built into" Castle Rock. This isn’t just a stylistic choice; the pub utilizes the soft Bunter sandstone of the region, with several rooms actually being former caves.
When you walk in, you aren't just entering a bar. You're entering a geological formation.
The air is different here. It’s cool, slightly damp, and smells of old wood and stone. The "Rock Lounge" is the most famous part of the interior, where the ceiling is literally the rugged underside of the castle's foundations. You can see the pick marks in the stone where medieval workers—or perhaps 17th-century ones—carved out space for barrels.
There is a weird, cramped feeling to the place that you just can't replicate in a modern build. It's claustrophobic in a way that feels like a hug from history.
What’s in a Name?
The word "Trip" doesn't mean a vacation in this context. Not really. In Old English, a "trip" was more of a stop, a resting place, or a "halt" on a journey. The legend goes that knights on their way to the Holy Land would stop at the foot of Nottingham Castle to grab one last ale before heading off to the Crusades.
Is there proof they did? Not exactly.
Historians like Dr. James Wright have spent significant time debunking some of the more "enthusiastic" claims made by ancient British inns. The reality is that while the caves beneath the pub are certainly ancient—used for brewing and storage for the castle above—the actual timber-framed building we see today mostly dates back to the 1600s.
The Cursed Galleon and Other Oddities
If you go, look up. You’ll see a dusty, cobweb-covered wooden model of a ship. This is the Cursed Galleon.
The story is simple: anyone who cleans it dies a horrible death.
According to local lore, the last three people who tried to give the ship a dusting met an untimely end shortly after. Now, the pub staff refuses to touch it. It’s thick with decades—maybe centuries—of grime and soot. It sits in a glass case now, mostly to prevent any "accidental" cleaning or falling dust from hitting a patron's burger.
It’s a bit of kitsch, sure. But in a place that feels this old, you find yourself believing it.
The Pregnancy Chair
Then there’s the chair. It’s an old, uncomfortable-looking wooden thing. Legend says that any woman who sits in it will become pregnant shortly thereafter.
I’ve seen people approach it with a mix of genuine hope and absolute terror.
The pub actually had to move the chair because so many people were trying to sit in it that it was causing a "traffic jam" near the bar. It’s these little layers of superstition that make Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem feel less like a tourist trap and more like a living museum of English folklore.
The Rivalry: Who is Actually the Oldest?
England loves a "most ancient" competition. It’s a marketing goldmine.
Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem claims 1189.
The Bingley Arms in Bardsey claims 953 AD.
Ye Olde Fighting Cocks in St Albans used to claim 793 AD (though they've softened that claim recently after some architectural scrutiny).
The truth is that defining the "oldest pub" is nearly impossible because of how buildings evolve. A pub might sit on a site used for drinking for 1,000 years, but if the current walls were built in 1750, is it still the same pub?
At "The Trip," the brewing cellars are undeniably linked to the medieval castle. Since the castle was founded in 1068, it’s highly likely that some form of brewing or alehouse activity was happening on this exact spot for nearly a millennium.
Whether it was a "pub" in 1189 or just a hole in the rock where a soldier could buy a drink is a matter of semantics.
Drinking in a Cave: The Practicalities
If you’re planning a visit, don't expect a massive, sprawling gastropub experience. It’s tight. It’s narrow.
- The Beer: They serve Greene King ales (the current owners), but they usually have a "Olde Trip" house ale that is surprisingly decent. It’s a standard bitter, nothing fancy, but it hits the spot when you're sitting in a cave.
- The Food: It’s standard British pub fare. Pies, fish and chips, Sunday roasts. You aren't going there for a Michelin-star meal; you're going there to eat a Yorkshire pudding in a room where people were likely hiding from the Sheriff of Nottingham.
- The Layout: There are several levels. The "Museum Room" upstairs has some genuine artifacts, including an old chimney that goes all the way up through the rock.
One of the coolest features is the "speaking tube" or the shafts that connect the pub to the castle above. Back in the day, the castle residents could supposedly signal down for more supplies without ever leaving their fortifications.
Why It Actually Matters
We live in a world that is increasingly homogenized. You can go to a Starbucks in Nottingham or a Starbucks in New York and they feel identical.
Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem is the opposite of that.
It is weirdly specific to its location. It cannot exist anywhere else because it is physically part of the landscape. When you sit there, you’re connected to the physical history of the East Midlands. You’re sitting in the same cool, damp air that people sat in during the English Civil War, when Nottingham was a hotbed of unrest.
How to Get the Most Out of Your Visit
Don't just walk in, grab a pint, and leave. To actually "feel" the history, you have to be a bit more intentional.
- Go on a weekday afternoon. If you go on a Saturday night, it’s packed with stag parties and tourists. You won't see the rock; you’ll just see the back of someone’s head. At 2:00 PM on a Tuesday, the place has a ghostly, quiet energy.
- Look for the "Chimney." There’s a shaft that was used for ventilation for the maltings. It’s a marvel of medieval engineering that people often walk right past.
- Check out the "Cockpit." There’s a small area where cockfighting supposedly took place. It’s a grim reminder that "the good old days" were often pretty brutal.
- Walk the Castle Perimeter first. Understand the height of the rock above you. When you realize there are hundreds of tons of stone and a fortress sitting on top of your ceiling, the pint tastes a little different.
Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem might not have a receipt from 1189 signed by a crusader. It might have a lot of 17th-century brickwork masquerading as something older. But it doesn't really matter. In a digital age, standing in a room carved by hand out of a cliffside is a visceral experience that a history book can't give you.
Go for the legend. Stay for the fact that you're drinking in a hole in a mountain.
Your Next Steps for a Nottingham History Tour
If you want to make a day of it, don't stop at the pub. Nottingham is literally honeycombed with over 800 caves. After your pint, head to the City of Caves entrance at the Broadmarsh Shopping Centre. It’s a guided tour through the subterranean world where people lived, worked, and hid during air raids.
After that, walk up the hill to Nottingham Castle. While the "castle" is more of a ducal mansion now, the grounds and the underground tours of Mortimer’s Hole (the tunnel used to capture Queen Isabella’s lover in 1330) provide the necessary context for why a pub was built at the bottom of the hill in the first place.
Finish your walk at The Bell Inn or The Old Salutation Inn. Both are within walking distance, both are also incredibly old, and both have their own caves. By the end of the day, you'll have a much better grasp on why Nottingham is secretly one of the most historically dense cities in the UK.