Kings Arms, York
pub in York, North Yorkshire, England, UK
The Kings Arms is a public house standing by the River Ouse in the city centre of York, England.
The building lies across King's Staith from the River Ouse, at its corner with King Street. It is the only surviving structure that formed part of First Water Lane, a medieval street demolished during a slum-clearance programme in 1852 and rebuilt as King Street. A road sign on the building reads "King Street (formerly Kergate)", acknowledging the original medieval name of First Water Lane.
It was built in the early 17th century, with the upper floor and north and east walls timber-framed. The south and west walls are particularly thick, providing some protection against flooding, and are constructed of brick and stone, some of which was reused from medieval buildings. The building originally had no fireplaces or internal walls, and is therefore believed to have been constructed as a warehouse or custom house for trade coming up the river.
The building was recorded as the "Kings Arms" pub by 1795, but in 1867 it was renamed as the "Ouse Bridge Inn", after the nearby Ouse Bridge. By 1898, it was owned by the Samuel Smith Old Brewery. The brewery renovated it with new doors and windows, and the rear wing facing King Street appears to have been completely rebuilt, with the north and east walls reconstructed in brick.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Kings Arms, York” as pub in York, North Yorkshire, England, UK. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q26548870. Authority coordinates are 53.957, -1.083. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1852, 1795, 1867 and 1898.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kings Arms, York” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.