How old is "old"?

It all started with a post on Faceache about the oldest buildings in England, and St Martin in Canterbury was top of the list.

Of course, it depends on how you define what a building is.

And then whether the materials in the building's walls are what make it ancient or, indeed, the oldest.

St Martin is certainly old.

The west wall of the Nave is Saxon, and the north and south walls have Roman brick in them, and have lots of blocked up doorways and windows. But that doesn't make it old.

It is probable that St Martin is built on the remains of a Roman mausoleum, and it is possible that that was dedicated to St Martin. Legend has it that Queen Bertha, when she married, was already converted, and wanted a place in Canterbury to use for worship of her and her Court.

There is another church in the grounds of St Augustin's Abbey, St Pancras, that is built of Roman brick too, and the east Nave wall is Saxon, and this is just as likely to have been built for Queen Bertha. And the dedicaton is a Roman one too.

I digress.

And then I stumbled across a video claiming to show the oldest pubs and inns in England, with one claiming to be over a thousand years old. But the current building was built on the remains of a former inn, and so in combining the two, or more, buildings that have stood on the site you can get to a thousand years.

As the narrator said, if I built a pub on one of the great pyramids, then could I claim that to be 4,000 years old?

Indeed.

It turns out that the most famouls "oldest pub in England", The Trip to Jerusalem in Nottingham, is not the oldest pub in England, but it probably not the oldest pub in the city. In fact the claim was made after repainting the pub in the early 20th century.

For claims of great age to be verified, there has to be documented evidence for it. One pub claims to have been mentioned in Domesday, which is odd that no pub is mentioned in Domesday.

The Mermaid in Rye claims to have been renovated in 1420 AD, at least that's what the carving above the door says. But it is just a carved piece of wood.

Do we have pubs and inns of great age in England? (and Scotland and Wales) Yes.

Does it matter which is the oldest?

Not really.

Just go in, enjoy the beer and atmosphere.