Earl de Grey

Restored 19th-century waterfront pub at Castle Street, dismantled and reassembled on a new site in 2022

The Earl de Grey is a striking yellow-brick Victorian pub with an ornate cast-iron veranda, originally one of the busiest dockers' taverns in the city. After standing empty for years and threatened by a road widening, it was painstakingly relocated and restored as part of the wider regeneration of the Castle Street corridor.

It now operates again as a pub, with cask ales and a small kitchen. The interior is faithful to the late-Victorian original — tiled bar back, etched glass, mahogany counter — and the upper floor preserves a small private room said to have hosted sailors waiting for tides to turn. The location makes it a good first or last stop between Hull Marina and Queen Victoria Square.

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A story
When Castle Street was widened in the 2010s, the Earl de Grey — a Grade II listed dockside pub — was in the way of the new road. Rather than demolish it, the city had every brick and timber numbered, dismantled the building piece by piece, and reassembled it on a new plot a hundred metres away. The rebuilt pub reopened in 2022 with its original frontage and bar.

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