[Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem team]
Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem
Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem in 1954, taken from an auction catalogue
Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem's version of its history
The original castle at Nottingham was established on the rock in 1068 by William
Peverill for William the Conqueror. Peverill caused the course
of the River Leen to be altered to pass by the foot of the castle,
partly as a moated defence and partly as a water supply. However,
water was notoriously unsafe for drinking in those days, and so
ale was brewed and drunk instead, the alcohol in it killing most
of the nasty microbes. Consequently, after the building of the
castle, one of the first additions would have been a brewhouse.
As the process of brewing ale needs a steady temperature, the
caves at the foot of the rock were ideal, providing not only a tailor-made
air-conditioning system but also a great deal of storage space.
This probably occurred around 1070.
While there are no maps of that era, an examination of the caves suggests that the original location of the brewhouse was in the area of Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem. There are two vertical passages through the rock from the caves, which emerge into the open air outside the castle. One of these openings is sited in what is now the Brewhouse Yard Museum, and the other emerges into the present upstairs lounge of the inn. It is very likely that these were used in the malting process, for that required a large fire and also a very wide chimney. One or the other of these passages through the rock could have formed the basis of that chimney.
When the alterations to Brewhouse Yard began in 1974, an archaeological excavation proved conclusively that the original brewhouse must have been further east than the museum. The only location for it is the site and caves of Ye Old Trip to Jerusalem. This certainly establishes the castle brewhouse as existing prior to the date painted on the side of the inn -- AD 1189.
While it is impossible to be sure of the true date of the founding of the Inn, we can establish a rather tenuous link with the crusader orders of the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller (also known as the Knights of St John of Jerusalem) and, by deduction, with the Crusade that led ultimately to the present name of the inn.
Although Brewhouse Yard is now part of the city of Nottingham, this only happened at the turn of the 20th century. Due to the royal custom of awarding lands and land rights for loyalty and services rendered, the parochial rights to the area known as Rock Yard (now Brewhouse Yard) did not belong to the castle, although the castle actually owned the yard. Instead, after much legal wrangling, these rights came into the hands of the Priory of Lenton in 1213, after being passed back and forth between the priory, the Knights Templar and the Knights of St John of Jerusalem. The fact that these institutions held such rights, relatively insignificant though the rights were, was enough to keep the area separate from the rest of the city for almost 700 years. The law and order of Rock/Brewhouse Yard was the responsibility of the court of the Knights of St John, based in the village of Shelford, about 10 miles away.
The year 1189 -- the putative date of Ye Old Trip to Jerusalem -- is the year that Richard I Lionheart ascended the throne. One of his first acts as king was to answer the call to crusade against the Saracens in the Holy Land. Since the castle above the inn was a royal stronghold favoured by the king, the knights and men-at-arms who answered his call for what was to be the Third Crusade would have come there. It is believed that, before their journey to the Channel ports, they would also have stopped off for refreshments at the inn. In the Middle English spoken at the time, the word 'trip' did not mean 'a journey' but rather 'a stopping place'. Thus the inn was a resting place on the way to Jerusalem.
In 1330, Edward III entered Nottingham Castle, via the network of caves that honeycomb the rock, to arrest Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, who, with his lover -- the king's mother, Isabella -- had murdered Edward II. It is said that, at the height of their affair, Mortimer would meet Isabella ilicitly, entering the caves via a small room at the inn cut out of the rock (which has been known for many years as Mortimer's Room). However, given that their liaison was hardly a secret, this romantic tale seems unlikely.
The one thing that is certain is that the lower entrance to the castle was in Brewhouse Yard. According to Nottingham historian Charles Deering, there were at least six gates to the caves, the main one being about 2 m (7 ft) high and 2.5 m (8 ft) wide. This is likely to have been the one used by Edward III and his men, for it was through here that the ales brewed in the yard were taken up into the castle. The other possibility is that, in the interests of secrecy, Edward invaded via the small passage beginning in the inn, but this cannot be proven.
Mortimer was captured in the castle's royal apartments and subsequently was hanged at Tyburn. Ever since that time, the passage from Brewhouse Yard to the castle has been known as Mortimer's Hole. The very first dated reference to this part of Nottingham in the city council's records is from 19 January 1618:
Brewehouse -- the matter touching the purchase of the brewehouse here spoken by Maister Recorder is required to deal in ytt this tearme thatt answere may againe sent upp either to conclude ytt or to break ytt.
This strange notation seems to suggest that the city council had to decide whether or not to purchase the brewhouse of the castle and, if not, to send their decision to the royal representatives of the castle estate. Obviously they decided not to effect the purchase, and the brewhouse was finally sold privately in 1621.
This sale to Edward Ferres and Francis Phillips, which is recorded in the deeds of the inn, was commented on by two historians, Robert Thoroton and Charles Deering. Thoroton noted in his history of Nottingham:
The rock-yard into which the last and lowest gate of Mortimer's Hole opens is called in old writings the brewhouse of the castle, and indeed it had no other houses in it but such as served for the conveniency of brewing for the garrison; until King James I, by a particular grant under the broad seal, separated it from the castle.
Thoroton refers to Spede's map of 1610, saying that it shows just one solitary building on the corner of Brewhouse Yard, which may or may not have been the brewhouse. His own map of 1677 shows the chimneys emerging from the rock above the inn, but fails to show the buildings in the yard with any great accuracy. Architecturally, the black-and-white half-timbered section of the outer buildings of the inn can be dated to 1650 or 1660, and is later shown accurately, and in the correct location, on Badder and Peat's map of 1744, which in turn was used as a basis for Charles Deering's map in his book History of the Antiquities of Nottingham, 1751. Shortly after this date, the inn was bought by William Standord, who was responsible for many of the period buildings of Nottingham and, indeed, for the structure of the inn as it is seen today. The join between the old and the new is quite clear.
It is in Deering's book that the inn on this site is given a name: The Pilgrim. This may have come from a religious sect known as the Family of Love, which, taking advantage of the lack of city control, resided in the brewhouse. They addressed each other as 'Pilgrim'. After this, it is but a short step -- bearing in mind the area's connection with the court of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem -- to the present name, which first appears in Willoughby's Directory of Nottingham of 1799.
Throughout the 19th century, due to its extra-parochial status, the inn was the haunt of vagabonds and other unsavoury characters. It is rumoured that the well-known villain Charles Peace hid in a small chamber off the passage to Mortimer's Room.
Based on The Legends and History of Britain's Oldest Inn: Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, 1189 AD by Rowan A Kemp, Hardys & Hansons plc, 1994.
Back to Trip team
