The King’s Arms

The rival claim to the Bear, and the one with better continuity — 1607 and still a proper pub rather than a restaurant or a museum piece.

The King’s Arms has been pouring since 1607 and advertises itself as Oxford’s oldest pub. That runs directly against the Bear’s claim, and both are defensible: the Bear has the older name and site, the King’s Arms the longer unbroken run as the pub it still is. It sits on the corner of Holywell Street and Parks Road, between the Bodleian’s Weston Library, the Sheldonian and Wadham, which gives it a mixed crowd of academics, students and visitors that few Oxford pubs manage at once. It has long been said to have the highest average IQ of any bar in the world — an unverifiable boast, and exactly the sort of thing Oxford says about itself. Until 1973 the back bar was men-only.