The Oxford Bar The Oxford Bar The Oxford Bar is a public house situated on Young Street, in the New Town of Edinburgh, Scotland. The pub is chiefly notable for having been featured in Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus series of novels. The Oxford Bar, or The Ox, is John Rebus's favourite pub in Edinburgh. The Oxford Bar apparently became a public house in 1811, although it was a confectioner's shop in 1843. It was disponed on 30 October 1893 to Andrew Wilson, wines and spirits merchant, and thereafter remained a public bar. The Oxford Bar retains its original compartmentalised form, which many other
Pub in the form of a pictorial pun or rebus. For example, a pub in Crowborough, East Sussex called "The Crow and Gate" had for some years an image of a crow with gates as wings. A "British Pathe News" film of 1956 shows artist Michael Farrar-Bell at work producing inn signs. Most British pubs still have decorated signs hanging over their doors, and these retain their original function of enabling the identification of the pub. Today's pub signs almost always bear the name of the pub, both in words and in pictorial representation. The more remote country pubs often have