Portsmouths oldest pub: The Dolphin

The News, Portsmouth

03/07/2025

Transcript

00:00I'm Gina, I'm the general manager at the Dolphin. I've spent the last nearly 17 years in hospitality.

00:09This is the first pub that we opened as the new adventure in our group.

00:16It's the oldest pub in Portsmouth, originally from 1716.

00:21It's one of the only surviving buildings of World War II.

00:27Both sides were demolished and quite a lot down this road and barely even got a crack from there.

00:34The cathedral across the road was also damaged quite heavily during the war.

00:40It's always been here. There's a lot of sailing history, a lot of Navy history.

00:45During one of the renovations from the previous owners, they found a glass panel

00:51that was supposedly signed by Nelson before his last voyage.

00:56But that was found behind a wall, hidden during a refurbishment downstairs in the cellar.

01:03So that was a good find.

01:05And obviously this part of the building is all original.

01:08All the beams are all repurposed shipwood, which brings a lot of character, a lot of originality.

01:14So when we took over, obviously it was quite very generic grey interior.

01:19But we wanted to bring back the historical feel.

01:24So it's like you're walking into a ship, basically.

01:28It's nice, it's dark, it's mysterious in a way.

01:32We've recently just refurbished the front of the pub as well.

01:36And we've restored all the windows because it's a grade two listed building.

01:40A lot of them come through and they, obviously we've put a lot of new pictures up of historical sites of Portsmouth.

01:48But we've done it, the original is not what it looks like now.

01:52So everything in here is what it looked like pre-war.

01:55So you can have a journey as you walk in.

01:58And obviously everything in here is pretty much refurbished, refurbished woods, refurbished ship parts.

02:05So it's all from the era.

02:07And we've tried to keep that feel.

02:10Because where it's so old, we have a lot of like Americans, Australians, New Zealanders and things like that.

02:17And obviously the pub is older than their own history.

02:20So they love that element.

02:22They come in and they're like, wow, this wood is literally older than our whole country,

02:26which is like, it blows you away a little that the world around us is still quite so new.

02:34Originally it was an inn.

02:36So there was hotel rooms above, which nowadays you would literally call it a box,

02:42because they'd just have bunk beds upon bunk beds for any of the Navy that were staying down here.

02:47And that was until the 1900s.

02:52And then from 1900s to 1980, it was briefly a French restaurant.

02:58So they had a lot of overseas people come here, try and turn it into a French restaurant.

03:04And it was that for around 80 years.

03:07And then it was a hotel for a while with bigger rooms to the public.

03:13And then after that, it was a pub.

03:17So since I think it was 1986, it was a pub.

03:25And since then, it's just been a family run pub.

03:29And hopefully for another 100 years or so, it'll be the same.

03:34Absolutely.

03:35Over to the near-m folklore.

03:41I hope that you want to km2.

03:422 weeks before folks coming in with these back?

03:47All right.

03:48It's true.

03:53You.

03:54You.

03:56Grandma wouldn't be the owner.

03:57You.

Portsmouths oldest pub: The Dolphin

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