The Big Smoke

YEAR 2012

The Big Smoke

Fog, monarchy, tea, umbrellas and bowler hats. What’s left of old London in the contemporary, …

Fog, monarchy, tea, umbrellas and bowler hats. What’s left of old London in the contemporary, cosmopolitan and socially tense city that we know today? We searched for come of the few “original” London bits that ar still intact. Enjoy!

London’s oldest hat shop is called Lock & Co. Hatters and opened its doors for the first time in 1676. You can buy their classic bowler hats and deerstalkers online as well, but the place definitely deserves a visit – they still use a conformateur, an old tool resembling an instrument of torture, to calculate your hat & cap size!

Rules, in Theatreland, is London’s self-proclaimed “oldest restaurant”; it was actually founded back in 1798, when the word “restaurant” was still quite unknown in town. Today, it specialises in classic game cookery, oysters, pies and puddings.

Although the question of London’s oldest pub is predictably controversial, we can reasonably affirm that Holborn’s Seven Stars and The Olde Wine Shades, in the City, are two of the oldest. The first was built in 1602, but it’s hard to say whether it’s been a pub ever since, while the second was built around 1663. However, both places are charming – expect dark atmospheres and tiny spaces.

Electric Cinema, in Portobello Road, is London’s first cinema; it opened back in 1910 and is still operating. There’s also a nice brasserie.

Finally, here’s one of London’s oldest houses, which survived the Big Fire in 1666 and the Second Wordl War: according to TimeOut, it is located in West Smithfield (41-42 di Cloth Fair), and it was built between 1597 and 1614.

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