Origins and History
The inhabitants of the British Isles have been drinking ale since the Bronze Age, but it was with the arrival of the Roman Empire on its shores in the 1st century, and the construction of the Roman road networks that the first inns, called tabernae, in which travellers could obtain refreshment, began to appear. After the departure of Roman authority in the 5th century and the fall of the Romano-British kingdoms, the Anglo-Saxons established alehouses that may have grown out of domestic dwellings, first attested in the 10th century.
These alehouses quickly evolved into meeting houses for the folk to socially congregate, gossip and arrange mutual help within their communities. The Wantage law code of thelr ed the Unready proscribes fines for breaching the peace at meetings held in alehouses . Herein lies the origin of the modern public house, or “pub” as it is colloquially called in England.