Friday 25 December 2015

London's 14 oldest stores

London's 14 oldest stores
One of the joys of shopping in London today comes from discovering any number of traditional stores that have remained little changed since they were founded hundreds of years ago. These are some of the oldest…


 1676 - Lock & Co Hatters (6 St. James’s St., SW1, tel 020 7930 8874, lockhatters.co.uk) is both the world’s oldest hat store and one of the oldest family businesses still in existence. Sir
Winston Churchill, Charles Chaplin, and Admiral Lord Nelson, among other luminaries, have donned Lock headwear. Let’s not forget Firmin & Sons, which doesn’t retain an old store but survives as probably the third oldest business in London after the Whitechapel Bell Foundry (1570) and the London Gazette (1665). It made belts, buttons, uniforms, and insignia; the company supplied buttons to every British monarch, officially, since 1796.
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Taken from National Geographic London Book of Lists: The City’s Best, Worst, Oldest, Greatest, and Quirkiest (National Geographic Books; ISBN 978-1-4262-1382-3; $19.95) by Tim Jepson and Larry Porges.
Picture: GETTY


1689 - Ede & Ravenscroft (93 Chancery Lane, WC2, tel 020 7405 3906, edeandravenscroft.co.uk). The oldest tailor, wig-, and robe-maker in London (and probably the world) began in the Aldwych area of the city. It was soon supplying robes to William and Mary and has continued to serve the monarchy, as well as the legal, clerical, municipal, and academic professions.
Picture: GETTY


1698 - The “Widow Bourne” established London’s oldest wine business, Berry Brothers & Rudd (3 St. James’s St., SW1, tel 0800 280 2440, bbr.com), more than three centuries ago. Eight generations later, it’s still in the same family, at the same address. During its long history, it first supplied the royal family in 1830 as well as the wine for the Titanic.
Picture: GETTY


1706 - In 1706, Thomas Twining bought Tom’s Coffee House at 216 Strand. The location, between the City and Westminster, was ideal for picking up business from wealthy Londoners displaced west by the Great Fire. Twinings & Co (tel 020 7353 3511, twinings.co.uk) still sells tea and coffee from the same address.
Picture: GETTY


1707 - William Fortnum was a footman at the court of Queen Anne and had a sideline selling partly burned candles from the royal candelabra. Using the money he amassed, he set up a grocery store with his landlord, Hugh Mason. The fine food emporium Fortnum & Mason (181 Piccadilly, London, W1, tel 0845 300 1707, fortnumandmason.com) remains on the same site to this day.
Picture: GETTY


1730 - Does any store smell better than Floris (89 Jermyn St., SW1, tel 020 7747 3600, florislondon.com), a perfumer still at the site on which it was founded in 1730 by Spaniard Juan Famenias Floris? Much of the store’s beautiful interior dates from 1851, when the counter and wooden display cases were brought from the Great Exhibition of that year.
Picture: ALAMY


1750 - Swaine Adeney Brigg (7 Piccadilly Arcade, St. James’s, SW1, tel 020 7409 7277, swaineadeney.co.uk) still makes the exquisite leather goods for which it first became famous, along with hats and umbrellas.
Picture: GETTY


1760 - Hamleys (188-196 Regent St., W1, tel 0871 704 1977, hamleys.com) is the world’s oldest toy store, but it has moved several times since its first incarnation — a store known as Noah’s Ark founded in 1760 by William Hamley at 231 High Holborn, WC1, which was destroyed by fire in 1901.
Picture: GETTY


1787 - James J. Fox, or Robert Lewis as it then was (19 St. James’s St., SW1, tel 020 7930 3787, jjfox.co.uk), provided possibly the most famous cigars in the world—those smoked by Sir Winston Churchill—and is the world’s oldest cigar merchant. It has a museum (closed Sun., free), with cigar memorabilia dating back to the firm’s foundation.
Picture: ALAMY


1790 - D. R. Harris & Co. (29 St. James’s St., W1, tel 020 7930 3915, drharris.co.uk) began as Harris’s Apothecary, established by surgeon Henry Harris to sell lavender water, cologne, and English flower perfumes to the fashionable set of St. James’s. It is still there, a few doors down from the original address, and still sells shaving products, aftershaves, colognes, and skincare items from beautiful old premises.
Picture: ALAMY


1797 - Hatchard’s (187 Piccadilly, W1, tel 020 7439 9921, hatchards.co.uk) is the United Kingdom’s oldest bookstore and still trades from Piccadilly, where the company was founded. Most of the great British authors of the recent and distant past have visited the store, which often has an extensive collection of signed copies for sale.
Picture: GETTY


1797 - Paxton & Whitfield (93 Jermyn St., London, SW1, 020 7930 0259, paxtonandwhitfield.co.uk) smells almost as good as its nearby neighbor, Floris, but in a different way, for this is a purveyor of fine cheeses. The company has its roots in the county of Suffolk and operated a market stall at Aldwych before moving to this site in 1797.
Picture: ALAMY


1806 - Henry Poole & Co. (15 Savile Row, W1, 020 7734 5985, henrypoole.com) is acknowledged as both the first tailor shop to set up on Savile Row (in 1846) and as the place where the dinner jacket, or tuxedo, was invented.
Picture: GETTY


1830 - There can be only one place for umbrellas, canes, and walking sticks in London: the historic premises of James Smith & Sons (53 New Oxford St., WC1, tel 020 7836 4731, james-smith.co.uk), which have remained almost unaltered for more than 140 years—though the business is older still.
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Taken from National Geographic London Book of Lists: The City’s Best, Worst, Oldest, Greatest, and Quirkiest (National Geographic Books; ISBN 978-1-4262-1382-3; $19.95) by Tim Jepson and Larry Porges.
Picture: ALAMY

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