Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem Public House

Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem Public House

A public house principally dating to the late 17th and 18th centuries, extended in the 19th century. The building incorporates rock-cut conical caves and cellars.

The structure combines brick and timber with carved-sandstone cellars and caves. The roofs are covered in clay tiles.

The building has a central range between the street and the Castle Rock, with additions to the left and right forming a z-shaped plan. The ground floor public areas are served by a radial bar counter, with the exception of the snug.

The building stands at the base of the Castle Rock. Perpendicular to the face of the Castle Rock is the two-bay, two-storey box-framed 17th-century structure that is the earliest part of the inn. It has casement windows at ground and first floor, panels of brick in-fill, and a steep tiled roof with one dormer and a tall brick chimney. A taller bay to the left, dating to the first half of the 18th century, is three storeys high and forms a corner tower. It has sash windows on its east elevation and a dentil cornice. The painted sign on this corner reads "ye olde trip to jerusalem / 1189 AD / the oldest inn in England". Although the information claimed in the sign is unsubstantiated, it has appeared here since at least the 19th century.

The south elevation of the corner tower is gabled with kneelers. It has an attic casement window and a ground floor Yorkshire sliding sash window. Extending to the left for three bays is the south-western wing. At ground floor is a 19th-century pedestrian gateway and four small windows. A single window at first floor replaces the former access to the hayloft. This wing terminates in a gable on its west elevation in plain red brick, with a single window at ground floor.

The west courtyard incorporates the face of the castle rock, which has been partly bricked-up to house the cellar entrance and the first floor rock lounge, identifiable by the casement windows. On the east side is the box-framed walling of the building's 17th-century phase of construction, with brick in-fill and casement windows. The south side of the yard has been altered to create a covered passage in front of the south-west wing. At first floor there are two late-20th-century casement windows and a 19th-century wall-mounted lamp. At ground floor there is an alleyway at the left handside and late-20th-century doorways.

At the north-eastern corner of the site is a single-cell, one-and-a-half storey brick lean-to building with a long plain-tiled roof. This is now the principal entrance. Where the roof meets the cliff-face there is a small window in a slim brick wall. At ground level, to the left of the entrance, is a large timber multi-pane casement window providing an external servery for the bar.

The interiors of the building vary between a warren of rock-cut cellars, separate bars and snugs at the ground floor, back-of-house kitchens and stores in the upper storeys, and extraordinary upper rooms within the Castle Rock that reuse the earlier conical caves.

The ground floor bars include the Ward Room, Chimney Alcove, Money Bar and Yorkey's Lounge. The haunted snug connects to this area but is not served by the radial early-20th-century bar counters located in the north-eastern corner of the plan.

The bar has a quarry tiled floor and 20th-century fittings, including oak-panelled bar fronts.

The Ward Room, formerly a tap room, is partly formed from the Castle Rock. It has a flag stone floor and an early-20th-century brick-arched fireplace. Fixed to the wall is a bull's horn used for "ringing the bull", a traditional pub game.

The money bar, named after its decoration with different currencies, and the chimney alcove have stone flooring. The alcove is cut into the rock at the base of a conical cave and contains a later brick chimney.

Yorkey's Lounge, named after landlord George "Yorkey" Ward (died 1914), has an exposed spine beam propped by a 19th-century cast iron post. The floor is covered in quarry tiles and there is a variety of dado panelling. At the north end of the lounge is a 19th-century hob grate with a simple wooden surround.

The haunted snug is at the south-eastern corner of the ground floor. It was formerly part of the landlord's accommodation and at one time a bottle-and-jug counter for take-away sales. It has an Edwardian fireplace with tiles and decorative wooden surround. A round stained-glass window borrows light from the passageway on the west side of the room.

Carved into the upper parts of the Castle Rock at the rear of the building is the Rock Lounge (former Lounge Bar) and Museum Room (formerly "Mortimer's Room"). The Rock Lounge inhabits the base of a massive sandstone cave. Its fittings date to around the 1930s, when its matchboard dado panelling, curving oak corner bar and arched brick fireplace were installed. The bar back is late-20th or early 21st century in date.

The eastern wall of the Rock Lounge was cut through in around 1996 to create a bridge across the adjacent cave to connect to the Museum Room, a walled cave with a tiled floor.

The upper storeys of the 17th-century range have become back-of-house spaces: kitchens, stores, air-handling equipment. Historic features include some 17th-century timber framing and the use of lath and plaster.

The cellars extend in multiple directions and levels, with six principal chambers all of which have been cut directly into the rock. Some chambers have low ledges used for beer stillage. One chamber is gated. The floors are mostly paved with brick, though some are bare stone and others have a concrete surface.