The following text is from the original listed building designation:
1. 944 OATEN HILL PLACE (North West Side)
No 2 (Old City of Canterbury TR 1557 SW 9/612 Public House)
II GV
2. Early C19. 2 storeys stuccoed Parapet with stone coping. Hipped slate roof. 5 sashes with glazing bars intact.
Nos 2 to 8 (even) form a group with Nos 29 to 36 (consec) Dover Street.
Listing NGR: TR1526657397

The Canterbury UAD states that this is a Mackeson & Co/Whitbread/Fremlin inn.

Oaten Hill, the site of an ancient market, is one of the most important parts of Canterbury although it is just outside the City walls. Kings and Queens of England and France and many other famous people have ridden from Watling Street, through Oaten Hil into Dover Street. Dr William Urry said on several occasions, ' the whole tide of English history has flowed down Oaten Hill and Dover Street'.

Outside the Old City of Canterbury is a piece of land, now used as a car park, which is all that is left of the ancient Tumulus (burial mound) and here, for several hundred years, stood the scaffold on which so many people were exacuted, including three Roman Catholic priests in 1588.

The inn is not very old. Early in the 19th century Mr Groombridge was the innkeeper and Bagshaw Kent Directory listed it as the City of Canterbury in 1847. By 1865 the Directory was calling it the Old City of Canterbury and Mr Hogwood was the innkeeper. In the Canterbury Directory for 1878 the licensee is given as George Barker Junior; and in Bedwell's Directory for 1888-89 J. Poplar is listed as licensee.

The City Licensing Planning Committee Survey of inns and taverns at the end of the Second World War listed the type of clients using the inn at that time as 'Artisans and labouring, some residents'. It is now (2003) known as the 'Old City Bar'.

English Heritage, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Map). SKE16160.

Unknown, 1878, Canterbury Directory (Article in serial). SKE30109.

Bedwells, 1889, Bedwells Directory of Canterbury (Article in serial). SKE29988.

Wilmot, E., 1988, Inns of Canterbury (Monograph). SKE29737.