Black Boy Inn
Northgate Street, Caernarfon, Gwynedd, LL55 1RW
About
Inside the walls on Northgate Street, the Black Boy has 'Built circa 1522' painted on its gable and its own history page calls it one of north Wales's oldest inns; Cadw's listing is more cautious and puts the house in the 17th century, built in phases. Food runs noon to 9pm Sunday to Thursday and noon to 9:30pm on Friday and Saturday, per the inn's restaurant page, which says tables are walk-in only with a waiting list run from the door, and warns that it gets busier the later the evening goes. The same page still carries old wording about card-secured reservations, so treat it as walk-in and turn up early. Non-residents can walk in for breakfast in the bar until 11:30. On the name, the inn's own history page gives the theories: a visiting black boy, a black navigation buoy in the harbour, and the nickname Royalists gave Charles II; its signs show a buoy on one side and a boy on the other. Northgate Street itself was Stryd Pedwar a Chwech, Four and Six Street, the inn says, after what a room and company cost in the old red-light days.
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