Two convict era pubs in Millers Point and a 1922 rebuild in The Rocks, then a basement in the city. Three of these houses claim to be Sydney's oldest and the state register disagrees with all three, on three different definitions. Nobody holds more than one of them. Sample the evidence.
- 1 · The Cold Open
Fortune of War
The pub sells itself as Sydney's oldest and the state register half agrees and half does not. Heritage NSW names the first licensee here as John Boreham in 1830, two years after the date on the frontage, and dates the building you are standing in to 1922, adding that no above ground evidence of the original survives at all. Tooth and Co pulled the old house down and the replacement took its first month of trade in December 1921, which is a hole in anybody's continuous. What did survive is the joinery, and the timber counter the pub calls the hamper bar is listed among the original internal fittings, so take your schooner there rather than in the bistro next door. Doors open at nine and there is music from Wednesday to Sunday. The case for the defence opens here.
first licensed on this site 1830, not 1828; the building is 1922 · daily 9am until late, the bistro and alfresco from 7am, live music Wed to Sun · verified Aug 2026
music Wednesday to Sunday, doors at nine
- 2 · The Detour
Hero of Waterloo
Built between 1843 and 1844 by the stonemason who had just finished the Garrison Church, and licensed in 1845, which makes this the oldest building in Sydney put up as a pub and trading as one ever since. The register says exactly that and stops there. It says nothing at all about the smugglers' tunnel, and neither does the Commonwealth record; the only source for the trapdoor and the shanghaied drinkers is the pub's own history page, which calls it a legend in its own first sentence. Enjoy the story, believe the sandstone. The main bar was two rooms until the partition came out in 1928, so what you drink your pint in is a single space of hand cut stone with a low door to the gents that will find your forehead. Upstairs the kitchen runs a whiskey steak, an eye fillet finished in a flamed whiskey sauce, and it is the one dish they have named after the house. Shut Mondays.
built 1843 to 1844, licensed 1845, in trade since · SHUT MONDAYS; Tue and Wed noon till 11pm, Thu to Sat till 11.30pm, Sun till 10.30pm; the restaurant also shuts Tuesday lunch · verified Aug 2026
- 3 · The Anchor
Lord Nelson
The state calls this the oldest working licensed hotel in the city and dates the licence to June 1842, while the pub's own menu says 1841, so even the winner of the argument is a year out on itself. The building came first and was not a pub at all: the Commonwealth record has it going up around 1834 as a two storey house with street verandahs, converted and extended in 1842 and 1843 when the licence arrived. Brewing started in the cellar in 1986 and has never stopped, which makes it the oldest pub brewery in the country, and the first beer they ever made is still the one to have. Order a pint of Three Sheets, the pale ale out of that first brew, and eat the English style pork pie with branston beside it. The house changed hands in December 2024. Sandstone, a keg slide cut into the Kent Street wall in 1957, and no argument you have not already lost.
a house of about 1834, licensed as a pub on 6 June 1842, brewing since 1986 · bar Mon to Sat 11am till 11pm, Sun noon till 10pm · verified Aug 2026
- 4 · The Last Call
The Baxter Inn
Down a laneway off Clarence Street, through a fire door and under the building, into a room the group's own history says was a Cue Design fabric storehouse. The council heritage schedule backs that up without meaning to, because the listed item covering this address is the commercial building called the Cue Clothing Company. The whisky list runs past a thousand bottles and the one thing on it that exists nowhere else is the Baxter blended whisky, an ever changing house blend aged in seasoned oak downstairs. Order that first and let the bartender argue you towards the rest. The pretzels are not a garnish and not a rumour: the bar answers its email at pretzels at thebaxterinn dot com, which tells you where it stands. No bookings, walk in, seven days.
opened 2010 in a former Cue Clothing storehouse · Sun to Wed 4pm till 3am, Thu to Sat 3pm till 3am; no bookings, walk in only · verified Aug 2026
🎁 The one we are holding, and why. Palmer and Co is a real room and it is trading: Merivale rebuilt its menu page on 5 August 2026 and the state licence names the bar in its own conditions. We cannot ship it. Merivale's own site sits behind a security challenge we will not attempt, so there are no hours and no drinks list we can stand behind, and the only ones in circulation are from a 2018 capture. Worse, it has no door: the operator gives the address as Abercrombie Lane with no number, the licence condition names the Bridge Lane entrance instead, and the entire address register holds one synthetic point for that laneway. A stop must be a door. Go if you are passing, but we will not send you.