Bridge Street · Salisbury · Wiltshire
The King's
Head Inn
An inn has stood on this spot since the fifteenth century. Six centuries of travellers, toasts, and tide-crept evenings on the River Avon.
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An inn has stood on this spot since the fifteenth century. Six centuries of travellers, toasts, and tide-crept evenings on the River Avon.
"In 1623, John Taylor — the Water Poet — rowed from London to prove the Avon navigable. On reaching Fisherton Bridge, he lodged at the King's Head."
Since the fifteenth century, there has been an inn on this very site. By around 1520 it was already known as the King's Head, and it kept that name through Tudor conspiracies, Civil War rumblings, and stagecoach eras until the rebuild of the 1880s.
For a time it was called The County Hotel — and before that, the King's Head and Brewery, when the inn brewed its own beer on the premises. Today, behind the rebuilt Victorian façade, the Wetherspoon era carries on the hospitality that has flowed here uninterrupted for over five hundred years.
The bar still sits within sight of Fisherton Bridge, where Taylor landed his oars in 1623. Some things, mercifully, do not change.
The first recorded hostelry appears on the Fisherton Bridge crossing — a stopping point for travellers, merchants and pilgrims bound for the cathedral close.
By the early Tudor period the inn is formally known as the King's Head — a name that will endure for over three centuries.
John Taylor rows from London to prove the Avon navigable, landing at Fisherton Bridge and lodging at the King's Head.
The King's Head and Brewery is rebuilt in the 1880s and briefly renamed The County Hotel before the present era.
The King's Head continues — breakfast from seven, real ales on the bar, twelve rooms upstairs, and the river still flowing past the door.
CAMRA-recognised and proud of it. The handpulls turn over fast — what's poured tonight may be gone by lunchtime tomorrow. A snapshot of what's likely flowing this week:
"The handpull is the heartbeat of any proper pub."
He demonstrated that the Avon was navigable by rowing his boat from London. On reaching Fisherton Bridge, he lodged at the King's Head Inn.John Taylor, The Water Poet — 1623An old traveller, a long river, a warm hearth.
Our pub doubles as a comfortable hotel, the sort of arrangement that has been working on this site since the fifteenth century. Stay the night, walk to the cathedral in the morning.
En-suite, flat-screen, tea & coffee.
Throughout the building, no password fuss.
Children welcome until 9pm daily.
Two minutes from the Cathedral Close.
From 7am, cooked to order downstairs.
Lift to all floors, accessible rooms available.
Under-18s welcome between 7am and 9pm when accompanied.