Thursday 18 June 2009

PUBLIC NOTICE: Help wanted

Beer writer, Real Beer blogger and (ir)regular NOT PC contributor Neil Miller is trying to determine, once and for all, which is the oldest pub in New Zealand to help sort out this “stoush” described here.

Can you help?

Any theories?  Any stories? Any facts?

Clint Heine has a couple of long-held thoughts.

4 comments:

deleted said...

Does it count if it didn't have a licence?

"The local pub, called The Kentish Hotel, is New Zealand's longest continuously licenced hotel"

;-)

Greig McGill said...

It's almost embarrassing that people care when there are Pubs in England dating back to the 12th century!

Judge it by the atmosphere, and the quality of the beer, wine, and food. Bugger the age. :)

Peter Cresswell said...

""The local pub, called The Kentish Hotel, is New Zealand's longest continuously licenced hotel""

I've heard the same claim for Russell's Duke of Marlborough, which may not be the original building (unlikely since Russell was burned to the ground in 1845 by Hone Heke) but since Russell in the very early 1800s was known as the hell-hole of the Pacific for all its grog shops and knocking shops, there's every chance it is on the site of one of those. :-)

Falafulu Fisi said...

Duke of Marlborough was built in 1820s. I was there 2 years ago and I read the plaque inside that pub which says that it was built in 1924 (I think). I saw some headstones in the cemetery there which dated to 1827 (the oldest one I can remember), which pretty much says that early settlers must have had a pub already built there at that time.