This pub is a remnant from the Middle Ages established in 1189 and one of the oldest buildings in York, which has many very old buildings.  The building is situated at the base of a high hill in the center of old York that had been the site of Nottingham Castle. The history of this place is attached to the religious crusades.  "Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem" The story is promoted that knights on their way to the Middle East would have some of their last drinks in this establishment.  However, I didn't ask the bar tender of the possible hypocrisy of a knight drinking after swearing their loyalty to Christianity.  The interior is a very small and tight space but very picturesque but has probably been remodeled numerous times and may have had many different uses including as an inn and a brewery for Nottingham Castle that overlooks the site.

York has an even older history going back to the settlements and invasions of the Vikings. The Vikings started their rampages through Europe with the pillage of the Lindisfarne Monastery off the coast just north of York in 793. It set the reputation of the violence of which the invaders were capable and did perpetuate the story through their further pillaging in Great Britain, Ireland, Scotland, France and even the Mediterranean principalities over the next two hundred years.  York coast had been a trading city and settled even earlier by Danes (perhaps by 250ad) who perhaps had laid out the sea route and value of this city.