oldexeterinnEvery week, Letter from America looks east. Two American hosts explore the stories, places and characters of Britain – the history Americans half remember, the connections they never knew, and the corners of the old country where the American story actually began.
The Inn That Refused to Die
This week, Letter from America travels to a small candlelit inn on the edge of Dartmoor — and asks how on earth it’s still open.
The Old Exeter Inn in Ashburton, Devon, is the oldest freehouse in the world. It has been trading in the same building since 1130 — sixty-four years after the Norman Conquest, five centuries before the Mayflower sailed. Horses were still being led through the inside of the bar as recently as 1913.
It’s also, quietly, an American landmark. In 1603, Sir Walter Raleigh — the Devon man who founded England’s first American colonies, named Virginia for his Queen, and gave North Carolina’s capital its name — was arrested for treason in one of its small dark rooms and taken to the Tower of London.
Our hosts dig into 900 years of continuous trade, Drake and Raleigh, ghost stories and ale tastings — and land on an awkward question for the modern hospitality industry: has this inn survived nine centuries precisely because it refused to modernise?
Twenty minutes. Nine hundred years. Pour something proper and press play.
