The Bell Inn The Bell Inn The Bell Inn is an ancient pub in Nottingham, England. Dating from around 1437, it claims, along with Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem and Ye Olde Salutation Inn, to be the oldest pub in the city. In 1982 the pub became a Grade II listed building. Sometime before 1271 Nottingham Whitefriars established a friary on what is now Friar Lane with lands that included a guesthouse on the site of what is now the Bell Inn. The building was constructed as a refectory for the monks of the monastery on Beastmarket Hill; according to dendrochronological dating of
Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem - other pubs which claim to be the oldest include Ye Olde Salutation Inn and The Bell Inn also in Nottingham, and Ye Olde Fighting Cocks in St Albans, north of London. The pub claims that it was established in 1189 AD - the year that Richard the Lionheart became king and Pope Gregory VIII called for a Third Crusade to the Holy Land; however, there is no documentation to verify this date. Evidence suggests that caves in the rock against which the pub is built were used as a brewhouse for Nottingham Castle, and may date from around the