The pub “Ye Olde Fighting Cocks,” officially Britain’s oldest pub Tim BrownThe attractive city of St Albans has more pubs than most places in Britain: there are more pubs per square mile here than anywhere else in the country! But there is one pub that is particularly special: Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, located near the town’s historic “cathedral and abbey” and Verulamium Park. According to Guinness World Records, this is officially Britain’s oldest pub.
Although the current building was erected in the sixteenth century, the original was built much earlier and has foundations dating back to around 793. In fact, there has been an inn on this site for almost a thousand years! Visiting it is like travelling back in time, says Tim Brown, the pub’s landlord.
THE HEART OF ENGLAND
Public houses, or pubs, have a very special place in British culture. Dating back to Roman taverns, pubs have been centres for drinking and social gathering for many centuries. Samuel Pepys, the famous seventeenth-century diarist, described pubs as “the heart of England” and, despite a decline in the numbers of traditional and rural pubs, this remains true today.
Ye Olde Fighting Cocks certainly has plenty of history. Oliver Cromwell is said to have watered his horses here during the English Civil War – and left them in the bar while he slept upstairs!
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
It’s not unusual for pubs to alter names several times in their history, reflecting changing times and tastes. Ye Olde Fighting Cocks was originally known as The Roundhouse, due to its shape. When cockfighting was popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the pub became a venue for the sport and changed its name to Ye Olde Fighting Cocks. In the mid-nineteenth century, after cockfighting was banned, the name changed to The Fisherman because of its proximity to the river. In 1872 it changed back and it has remained Ye Olde Fighting Cocks ever since.
MODERN TIMES
Obviously, the pub doesn’t offer cockfighting any more. Today’s customers are entertained by fine beer and wine, quality English food, live music on Fridays and weekly quiz evenings, which Brown hosts. Although he has many curious tourists come to visit Britain’s oldest pub, he emphasises that this is a real pub, “not a McPub or Disney Pub”.
In 1946, George Orwell suggested that the perfect pub should have friendly staff, a beer garden, and serve good food and beer. But there is one other factor listed by both Orwell and today’s Good Pub Guide as being essential for a great pub: atmosphere. This is something that Ye Olde Fighting Cocks has in abundance. Former customers frequently return with stories about people they have met and things they have done in this historic pub.
“People do come back here, they search for it because significant things have happened here in the past,” says Brown. “It’s fantastic. I think the people of St Albans obviously have this place in their hearts.”
Speakers: Justin Ratcliffe (Standard British accent)
Ye Olde Fighting Cocks claims to be the oldest pub in Britain. It is in the pretty city of St. Albans, to the north of London. St. Albans has been inhabited since Roman times, but people have been drinking on the site of this pub for a thousand years.
Tim Brown is the landlord at Ye Olde Fighting Cocks. As he explains, his pub is near the “Cathedral and Abbey Church of St. Alban”:
Tim Brown (Standard British accent)
There are tunnels that lead from the abbey to the pub. There’s a hole in the wall in the cellar downstairs, there’s a void behind it and, between ourselves and the abbey, there’s a park. And about a-year-and-a-half ago a big oak tree came down in the park. Where the earth was moved, where the roots had come up, in the hole you could see the brickwork for the structure, for one of the tunnels. They run from the abbey, so the monks must have been scuttling up and down during the night with barrels of beer!
GHOST STORIES...
And, he says, customers can tell that Ye Olde Fighting Cocks is a very old pub before they enter:
Tim Brown
Well, I think before they come in, if you look at the building from the outside, it’s just got such a peculiar shape. And there’s not a right angle in the building, none of the doors fit! A lot of the windows are slightly off square. It looks like a very old building, it looks like it is an incredibly old, creaky pub, full of ghosts and spiders and... stories!
We asked him to give some examples:
Tim Brown
There are a number of stories. There’s a... a soldier who shouts at people: apparently, he presides in and around the cellar. Before my time a member of staff came flying out of the cellar, white as a sheet, having been berated by a spectre. There’s a little girl that sleeps in front of the fire and there’s a nun as well! It’s not an old pub unless you’ve got a... a spectral nun!
IF TOU GO...
The cathedral city of St Alban’s lies 35 km north of central London. There are regular trains from St Pancras (Domestic terminal) and Farringdon stations.
Ye Olde Fighting Cocks is located near the cathedral at the bottom of Abbey Mill Lane, close to the river, and a 20-minute walk from the station. For further information please visit
http://www.yeoldefightingcocks.co.uk/
- 100 GR DI PROSCIUTTO 
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