The Nutshell is a pub in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

Suffolk

Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...

, England, claiming to be the smallest pub in Britain, although this claim is challenged by several others, including the Smiths Arms at Godmanstone

Godmanstone

Godmanstone is a village in west Dorset, England, situated in the Cerne Valley four miles north of Dorchester and south of Cerne Abbas. The village has a population of 144 in about 60 homes....

 and the Lakeside Inn in Southport

Southport

Southport is a seaside town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England. During the 2001 census Southport was recorded as having a population of 90,336, making it the eleventh most populous settlement in North West England...

. However those two establishments while having smaller interior space seat most of their clients outside in a beer garden. Whatever the truth of its claim, the pub is certainly diminutive, there being very little room for more than ten or fifteen customers to drink at any one time. The pub measures 4.57 by 2.13 m (15 by 7 ft). In 1984, a record number of 102 people squeezed into the pub.

Inside the pub is suspended the dried body of a black cat, discovered during building work. Builders used to brick cats up behind chimney hearths, where they died of starvation and heat.