The Golden Cross is a public house in Shrewsbury, England; it is reputed to be the oldest licensed pub in Shrewsbury. Architecture The building is listed. The first floor is jettied with moulded bressumer and close studding. History 1400–1600 Records show that the Golden Cross was used as an inn as far back as 1428, some years before the introduction of formal licensing. Its original name was the Sextry, and it is said to have been the sacristy of Old St. Chad's Church, the ruins of which can still be seen over the road in Princes Street. The sacristy was where the church plate and vestments were kept, and it also provided lodgings for a church officer known as the sacristan. Similarly, the original name of Golden Cross Passage was Sextry Shut, site of the lodgings for the Vicars Choral of St. Chad's. In 1933, a couple of timber-framed archways were discovered which a local archaeologist dated back to the time of Henry III (1216–1272), but these had apparently been covered by a later building which some unknown authority has assigned to 1428. The Sacristy was connected to the church by a covered passageway, probably to provide shelter for the Vicars Choral as they processed to their midnight offices in the church. The passageway was subsequently demolished, and the present Princess Street now cuts across its path. Although alterations have occurred over the years, much of the building dates back to the last quarter of the fifteenth century. The earliest surviving record for the inn is a Bailiffs' Account for 1495, which shows that the sum of 13s.2d was spent on "The King's gentlemen in sextre at the comyng home of Mr Prynce from London". It is not certain who the important "Mr Prynce" was, but there may be a connection between him and the name "Princess Street", as earlier spellings of the name give it as "Princes Street". 1600–1800 The first known licensee of the inn appears in 1619, when the Bailiffs' Account mentions a lawsuit between John Cleve of the Sextry and his father-in-law John Price of the Pheasant in Mardol, another part of Shrewsbury town centre. During the Civil War a group of Royalists from the town regularly met there and were described by one of their number as " a club of good fellowship," while a member of the opposite persuasion referred to them as "a