A Short History of the British Pub

These days the great British pub serves food good enough to get in a Michelin guide, but they first appeared in Roman times and beer was wanted more than gourmet food

Reviewing the Michelin Guide to Eating Out in Pubs this week made me wonder when pubs first appeared on British streets. After a quick look in the books and on the internet, this is what I found about the history of the great British pub.

The first pubs in Britain arrived with the Romans. Alcohol had been brewed for a long time, but in small communities where no-one ever went anywhere, there was no need to start a business selling ale. Everyone either made their own or bartered it from other people. It was only with the arrival of the Roman roads, which made easier long-distance travel possible, that there came a need for rest stops offering food, drink and a bed for the night.

These first pubs were important because in those days it was more common to drink beer than water. Drinking beer wasn't the social event that it is today: it was a case of survival. Beer was safer to drink than water, and it became quite common for houses in a town or village to put a sign outside indicating to passers-by that they could stop and get a healthy drink of beer there, from ale brewed on the premises.

If a pub also offered rooms for the night, it was usually called an inn, but these days there are plenty of inns which don't provide accommodation. Modern hotel chains like the Days Inn and Travelodge Inn would be using the right historical name... provided they also had a bar serving alcohol. This isn't usually the case, so the Romans definitely would not have approved. They would have carried on straight down the Roman road till they found one that did. And that, in 300 words or less, is a short history of the British pub.

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