The Lowther Hotel

Begun in 1824 as the brand-new port town's first permanent building, the Grade II*-listed Lowther on Aire Street is officially England's oldest hotel — trading today as iSleep at The Lowther serviced accommodation.

The hotel was built in 1824-26 for Sir Edward Banks of Jolliffe & Banks — the contractors who built Goole's first docks and several of London's Thames bridges — and opened before the Knottingley & Goole Canal itself in 1826. First called the Banks Arms, it was renamed in 1835 after Sir John Lowther. Bought in 1828 by the Aire & Calder Navigation Company, which effectively governed the young town, it served as Goole's principal civic building for much of the 19th century and briefly as its customs house after the port opened to foreign trade in 1828, with a cellar used as a bonded warehouse. When Exeter's Royal Clarence was destroyed by fire in 2016, the Lowther became recognised as England's oldest hotel, an accolade marked by a Goole Civic Society blue plaque unveiled by the town's youngest-ever mayor.

The building's greatest treasure is a rare complete set of early-19th-century painted wall murals in the first-floor suite, thought to predate 1830 yet depicting dock buildings completed later — suggesting they served as a painted prospectus to woo investors in the new port (Historic England, list entry 1310687). Behind the handsome Georgian brick facade, the rooms have been recently refurbished and are let as iSleep at The Lowther serviced accommodation: doubles, kings, super-kings and suites with kitchenettes, en-suites and free Wi-Fi, available for short stays and longer lets. Note: the hotel's former Burlington Restaurant is permanently closed, and the current room count could not be independently verified.