Plans have gone in for an historic York pub to change its name.
The Blue Boar, located on Castlegate, has submitted a planning application to City of York Council to replace its exterior signage and rebrand as the Castlegate Tavern.
The move follows a major spruce up inside the historic venue earlier this year.
Landlord Jason Hawkins, who also runs the nearby Three Tuns on Coppergate, set out to refresh the site and position it as a proper local pub for city residents, complete with live sport, pool, darts, live music and regular poetry nights.
The building at 5 Castlegate has a colourful history.
The site originally housed a medieval inn, the Blue Boar, that accommodated Royalist soldiers during the Siege of York before being demolished around 1730 and replace by the current building.
Legend has long connected the pub to Dick Turpin. The highwayman’s body was said to have been laid out in the cellar following his execution on the Knavesmire in 1739, with the landlord charging curious locals a small fee for a glimpse.
The name the Blue Boar dates back to at least 1579, according to A Directory of York Pubs: 1455-2004 by Hugh Murray.
But over the centuries, the pub has gone through several identity changes. It previously operated as the Robin Hood in the 18th century and later became a busy coaching inn.
In 1894, the venue was renamed the Little John, a name it kept for well over a century until it reopened in 2012 under the reinstated the Blue Boar title.
According to planning documents prepared by Paddick Engineering, the proposed change to Castlegate Tavern aims to give the business a clear local identity while respecting its historical surrounding area.
The application stresses that no physical changes will be made to the Grade II listed building itself.
Instead, the project focuses purely on changing the exterior fascia and hanging signs.
A heritage statement submitted with the plans notes that while the current name carries historical weight linked to heraldic traditions, pub names naturally evolve over time.
It adds that adopting the name Castlegate Tavern creates a strong geographic tie to the medieval route leading towards Clifford’s Tower, preserving and reinforcing the pub’s connection to its immediate surroundings.
The public house will continue to trade normally as a community venue throughout the planning process.
You can read and comment on the planning application here.
