WHICH OF THESE HAS THE LONGEST HISTORY?

Old Ferry Boat Inn, St Ives, Cambridgeshire (560AD)

The inn overlooking the River Ouse claims to be the country’s oldest, maintaining it has documents showing it was selling booze a millennium and a half ago.

Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, St Albans (793)

Originally located by St Albans Cathedral, the hostelry (below) moved to the edge of Verulamium Park in the mid-16th century. Its foundations are said to date back another 750 years, which probably earned it the Guinness World Records nod for oldest pub.

The Porch House, Stow-on-the-Wold (947)

Cheltenham’s contender for the most ancient pub has been standing for 11 centuries, according to the Porch House’s website, apparently accruing a host of ghosts along the way.

Bingley Arms, Leeds (953)

Originally a safehouse for persecuted Catholic priests, the Bardsey boozer says it is both the oldest surviving business and oldest surviving pub in the UK. The yew tree in what is now the beer garden predates the building, though a verifiable birth date for that remains inconclusive, too.

The Royal Standard of England, Beaconsfield (1086)

So confident is the Beaconsfield watering hole of its unrivalled antiquity that it bought the domain name oldestpub.com. Gnarled beams, worn flagstones and oak panels certainly give it a medieval aesthetic.