New pub – Old Inn

We’d driven past the Old Inn in Clevedon times without number and barely given it a second glance. Last Sunday there was a festival of shanty singing, and since my husband and another friend are in a shanty group we went along to listen to the groups… I have to be honest, I like teh ideas of sea shanties and other work songs, but in actual fact I really don’t enjoy listening to them much. However it was a pleasant Sunday afternoon with husband, friend, and friend’s wife, and we thought what a great pub it seemed to be. Good beer, good food from the looks of the plates passing us by and a great atmosphere.

We had cousins visiting today and the idea was to go out for a meal… unfortunately, although it was Wednesday which you might think was a quiet day, everywhere seemed booked! We had a sudden inspiration to try the Old Inn, and how pleased we were! It’s such a friendly place, and although it was very, very busy and we were strangers among the regulars, the staff and other customers were all so welcoming and homely.

Apparently the Old Inn really is old,  one of Clevedon’s oldest pubs dating to about 1754, It’s the town’s first and oldest inn, and started as a coaching inn and its first landlady was Susannah Hart. Apparently at one time the whole of the front of the old place was covered with white roses – how inviting that must have looked!

The resident shanty group is the Barnacle Buoys:

https://www.barnaclebuoys.co.uk/how-we-started