It is located on the south side of Oxford's High Street near to the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art and the Examination Schools of Oxford University.

The site was previously occupied by an inn called the Crosse Sword.

[2] The hotel is a converted 17th-century coaching inn located at the corner of Merton Street on the site of the town wall's former east gate.

Ross Andrews[3] links reports of the sound of men in armour and sightings of English Civil War era Royalist soldiers passing through walls to the hotel's location on the site of the old east gate, and speculates about a surprise attack by Parliamentarian forces.

The Eastgate was mentioned by John Betjeman (1906–1984) in his poetry:[4] Then, with a loosely knotted shantung tie And hair well soaked in Delhez' Genêt d'Or Strolled to the Eastgate.