Ye Olde Fighting Cocks

Ye Olde Fighting Cocks public house in the Hertfordshire city of St Albans I visited in the summer. Like Bolton’s Ye Olde Man & Scythe and Nottingham’s Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, it claims to the nation’s oldest drinking establishment, claiming a date of 793. Evidence for this is rather sparse though oral tradition and local custom should not be automatically discounted. The building, of course, does not date to that period, and looks sixteenth-century.

From Jacob’s Well, God has been suppyling our race’s spiritual needs, refreshing souls, watering spirits and assuaging thirsts. He who is the Water of Life has been satisfying Adam’s seed long before He was clothed in flesh ands blood.

Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Isaiah 55:1