Ye Olde Starre Inne, York

Just down the road from The Punchbowl, and down an alleyway, is Ye Olde Starre Inn. The first thing we notice is the pub sign straddling the street way above our heads pronouncing the pub as "Yorks Oldest Licensed Inn 1664". As we approach the pub, a blackboard by the entrance tells us that, in 1552, Edward VI restricted the number of inns in York to 8 (!) and that it is possible that The Starre was one of those 8. In 1644, the Roundheads used the inn as a billet hospital. The sign over the street was erected in 1792. It's an attractive looking whitewashed building with hanging flower baskets outside and criss crossed leaded windows. The interior is carpeted, comfortable, with a couple of snug type rooms with wood panelling and fixed seating and a main bar area. There's some oddly positioned coloured glasswork denoting "Star Inn" with bell pushes underneath, which caused me to wonder what the original pub layout was, as it would seem to have been different. For cricket fans, there's plenty of pictures of old cricketers. It's a Punch Taverns pub offering a standard pub menu, although an open kitchen slightly hidden away down a side corridor looked a bit gastropubby and incongruous with the rest of the pub. Beers on were John Smiths Cask, Old Peculier, Youngs Bitter plus 3 Wentworth beers. The Wentworth Summa Luvin was a pleasant pint. Despite a bit of a chainy feel, particularly in the main bar, I quite liked this one.

When i first went in this pub in the early 80s it was a Camerons house, i took this photo but did'nt go in here because the pub was too busy.

This is a Punch pubco establishment, but is seemed to have only Wentworth ales available, so possibly they have some sort of tie with that brewery in this part of the world. The Spring Bank that I had was rather nice. This claims to be oldest pub in York. I’m not sure how old that makes it, but most of the interior furnishings and decoration looks fairly modern, but there were some attractive leaded lights between the main bar area and one of the separate drinking areas. I did see something that says it pre-dates the reign of Henry VIII, but from the inside there’s nothing to suggest this sort of age. Perhaps they mean that there has been a pub on the site since that time. It’s a much larger place than you might think walking down the alleyway from Stonegate. In the Punch way it is reasonably comfortable inside, with banquettes, stools and metal framed tables. It's mainly food led by the look of things, seemingly for the tourists who throng Stonegate at this time of year. I think that this pub is definitely worth a visit, and is OK for a bite to eat and a pint being handily placed in the heart of the tourist area, but is not the sort of place to which I would pay regular return visits.