Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem

The date on the wall reads 1189, the year Richard the Lionheart came to the throne, and the pub's story is that crusaders gathered here for a drink before setting out for the Holy Land – the "trip" in the name being an old word for a stop or a break on a journey, so that the name means something like "the old stopping-place on the way to Jerusalem". It is a lovely story and impossible to prove. The earliest firm record of a licensed public house on the site is from 1760, when it was called The Pilgrim; it had taken its present name by 1799. The building above ground is largely seventeenth and eighteenth century, and historians place the oldest surviving fabric in the early 1600s.

What is undoubtedly ancient is the rock. The caves that form the pub's rear rooms and cellars were carved out of the soft sandstone beneath Nottingham Castle and are generally thought to have been the castle's brewhouse – some accounts say a malthouse was here as early as 1068, when the castle was first built, and a brewhouse is recorded in the twelfth century. The cool, constant temperature of the caves made them ideal for fermenting ale, and they still store the beer today. Brewhouse Yard, the lane on which the pub stands, takes its name from that use.

Over the centuries the caves acquired darker purposes. One part of the cellars is said to have been used as overflow for the castle's gaol, with prisoners chained to the sandstone in a U-shaped chamber designed so that none could hide from the guards; another held a cockfighting pit. Tunnels are claimed to run from the cellars up into the castle, and one cave is named for Mortimer's Hole, the passage through which Edward III's men supposedly seized Roger Mortimer in 1330. Since 2006 the freehold has been owned by Greene King, which runs the Trip as a busy tourist pub with a small museum room and regular ghost hunts.

The Trip's hauntings are mostly told by the people who work there, and the pub is unusually open about them. The current management is described as very mindful of its resident ghosts, Yorkey above all, and the cursed galleon and the Haunted Snug are pointed out to visitors as a matter of course. Local media have run features asking whether this is Nottingham's most paranormal pub, and ghost-hunters interviewed by the Nottingham press have described their own unnerving experiences in the caves and cellars.

Paranormal investigation companies use the building regularly. Brookes Paranormal, for example, runs exclusive overnight ghost hunts that take groups through the Rock Lounge, the Museum Room and Mortimer's Hole, Yorkey's Lounge, the Haunted Snug, the Ward Room, the Chimney Alcove and the cellars, with the cellars and the snug consistently reported as the most active. The phenomena claimed are what you would expect of a pub built into a cliff – knocks, cold spots, shadows, tugged clothing, voices caught on recorders – and the most frequently repeated single experience is the tap on the shoulder in the snug.

The sceptical view is straightforward and even the pub would not dispute it. The 1189 date is unsupported by documents, the building is centuries younger than the caves, and a sandstone cellar system beneath a busy city pub is full of draughts, drips, echoes and delivery noise. Nottingham's culture magazine LeftLion investigated the cursed galleon in 2025 under the heading "truth or legend" and found the tale far better at generating atmosphere than evidence. None of which stops people leaving the galleon well alone, and the Trip sits comfortably on every list of England's most haunted pubs alongside the Original Nottingham Ghost Walk, which stops here on its rounds.

Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem is at Brewhouse Yard, at the foot of Castle Rock in the centre of Nottingham, a couple of minutes' walk from Nottingham Castle and about fifteen from the railway station and Old Market Square. It is a working Greene King pub open every day for drinks and food, so you can simply walk in, order a pint and go looking for the galleon; the cave rooms at the back are open to customers, though they are low-ceilinged and can be busy at weekends. The pub offers tours of the caves and cellars and displays a small collection of curiosities in its museum room – ask at the bar or check the pub's website for current tour arrangements. It gets very full in summer and on match days.

Ghost hunts are run by outside operators such as Brookes Paranormal on selected dates, usually late evening into the small hours, and sell out; book directly with the operator. The Original Nottingham Ghost Walk includes the Trip among its stops. Access is limited by the building's age – steps, uneven floors and rock passages – so the caves are not wheelchair-friendly, though the front bar is more manageable. There is no accommodation at the pub. Nottingham has every kind of place to stay within a ten-minute walk, and the castle, the City of Caves and the Lace Market make a full day out.