Video: The pub is one of the oldest in Nottingham.
Ye Olde Salutation Inn, which claims to be the oldest pub in Nottingham, today (July 7) celebrated its 777th birthday.
The Inn appears on the itinerary of popular tours in Nottingham.
Jason Weston, the pub’s manager, said some customers have been coming back for decades.
He said: “It’s not just the history of the town, it’s people’s own personal memories. Some of the customers who are coming back are much older, they used to use the pub when they were young and they’re remembering those memories.
“It’s vital that places like this stay around.”
He added modern day pubs struggle to survive in a climate where beer is cheaper to buy from supermarkets.
Jason added: “It’s the price the beers are costing and how cheaply people can buy beer from places like the supermarket. It’s very difficult for pubs to compete with that because they can’t sell beer at that price.
“We do need help from the Government to have a look at beer taxes and the way beer is taxed. The smoking ban did no favours. There’s now some talk of banning smoke from the premises.
“People expect more from a pub now. It’s not just about finishing work and going for a few beers, wandering off and then going home. Part of the experience now is the food. You’ve got to have a food offer.”
1240 is the date displayed on the building when it opened, but there is only evidence of the Inn’s existence since 1440 – meaning the birthday’s birthday is debatable.
“There are records to show there was a building there in 1240,” said local historian David Cross, “But it wasn’t the current one we know as the Salutation.
“Through the dating of the wood in the structure, the oldest timber they could find dates to 1441. That’s as all of the building goes.”
One customer, who’s being drinking at the pub for 20 years, said: “I’ve been coming to the Salv for 20-odd years. Nottingham’s got so much history, there’s so many beautiful corners, there’s caves – there’s all sorts or stories and tales.”
Another added: “It’s got caves, it’s got somewhere you can come even if you’re not having a pint.”
Taking its name from the original ‘Archangel Gabriel Saluting the Virgin Mary’, the Salutation has been served the city for over seven centuries.
Its back snug, just off St Nicolas Street – formerly known as Jew Lane – is said to have been used by Oliver Cromwell’s soldiers as a recruiting room in the 1640s during the Civil War.
However, after Cromwell won the Civil War, the Sal had to temporarily change its name to the ‘Soldier and Citizen’, as the Salutation was considered too much for the new Puritan commonwealth government.
The Sal’s ancient caves below the pub were once used for brewing but also as a place for local highwaymen and foot-pads to trade their ill-gotten gains in privacy and ghost stories still remain of haunted highwaymen in its dark cellars.
However, tragedy struck the pub in 1820, when a large quantity of arsenic, intended to deal with the pub’s rat problem, got mixed in with the oatmeal.
The entire household in the Salutation were poisoned; all made a full recovery except for the landlord, John Green.
