18.08.09 - obviously this isn't the original building, but there's been a pub on this site, in Castle Street, Portchester, since about 1650. In the days when I used to visit the village every Tuesday - ostensibly to compile my "Portchester Notes" for the Hampshire Telegraph, I used to park up my old BSA Bantam motorbike and nip in here for a bottle of pale ale - lager was hardly known back in the sixties and was considered "girly" - when they started selling it on draught, it took over the pub market with astonishing speed, though!