London's Oldest Buildings

Check Out Our List Of London’s Oldest Buildings. 

  

OLDEST BOTANIC GARDEN

Founded in 1673 in order to grow much needed medicinal herbs and plants the Chelsea Physic Garden, which is situated in the grounds of the Chelsea Royal Hospital, is London’s oldest, public, botanic garden. 

OLDEST BREWERY

London’s oldest brewery is the Fullers Brewery located in Chiswick in the London Borough of Hounslow. The brewery has traded from this same site for over three hundred years but has only been known as Fuller’s since 1845. Before then it was known as the Griffin Brewery and was located in part of what was once London’s Duke of Bedford Estate. 

The façade of the brewery is festooned with what is reputed to be the oldest Wisteria palnt in the country, which was planted there in the early 1800s. 

OLDEST BRICK BUILT HOUSE

London’s oldest houses are a row of three, brick built, terrace houses situated in Newington Green in North London. The houses, which are Grade I Listed, were built in 1658 and are not only London’s oldest complete, brick built row of houses but the oldest row of brick built houses in the country. 

OLDEST CATHEDRAL

London's oldest cathedral is Southwark Cathedral located in Bankside in south London.The cathedral is a beautiful Gothic building which was built between 1220 and 1420, which is reputed to be London's oldest fully intact Gothic structure.  

OLDEST CHURCH

London’s oldest church is All Hallows by the Tower situated in the City of London, which was founded in 675, although little remains of the original building other than a small Saxon archway.

There remains considerably more of the City of London's Temple Church however, which was built between 1160 and 1185 for the Knights Templars.This beautiful medieval church still remains fully intact and is still a fully functioning Church Of England house of worship.

Located in Ely Place in the City of London is the site of the thirteenth century, St Ethelreda's Church, which was built around 1250 and is supposedly the oldest Catholic church not just in London but in the whole country.  

OLDEST FACTORY

London’s oldest manufacturing company is the now Grade II Listed, Whitechapel Foundry, located in Tower Hamlets. The factory is world famous for it’s bell foundry, where there has been a continuously operating foundry there since 1570. 

  

OLDEST FIVE STAR HOTEL

London’s oldest five star hotel is Brown’s Hotel situated on Albemarle Street in the City of Westminster. This high end, luxury hotel was founded by James and Sarah Brown in 1837 exclusively for the use of the rich and famous. 

  

        

OLDEST HOSPITAL

London’s oldest hospital is Saint Bartholomew’s located in the Smithfield area of the City of London. The hospital, which became known as St Barts upon the foundation of the National Health Service in 1948, has been situated here since 1123 when Rahere, a former courtier of King Henry I, opened the Priory of Saint Bartholomew there, making the hospital the only one in London to remain on it’s original site.

After the abolition of the monasteries the priory was bequeathed to the City of London as a poor house and place for the sick by the then king, Henry VIII, an act which is recognised by way of the only statue of him in the whole of London, which is positioned above the main door of the hospital. 

The hospital is also the site of London’s first ever medical college, which was founded at St Bartholomew’s in 1785.  

OLDEST MUSEUM 

London’s oldest museum is the Royal Armouries Museum which is located at the Tower of London. The museum houses London’s oldest collection of wartime memorabilia and dates back to 1414. 

OLDEST PALACE

London has several royal palaces, but many of the more well known ones are quite modern, having been built during the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries.

That leaves the oldest surviving royal ‘house’ still in existence that of Eltham Palace, located in the south, east of London. The palace, which actually began life as a manor house set in many acres of parkland, was built by King Edward II in 1305 as an out of town retreat for his new wife Isabella of France. 

 

OLDEST PUBLIC HOUSE

London’s oldest pub is reputed to be the Spaniards Inn located on Spaniard’s Road in the London Borough of Barnet.

The original building was constructed as a tollgate inn around 1585 and it is believed that the inn became a regular haunt of highwaymen who would use the inn as a lookout to watch the road for impending custom. 

OLDEST PUBLIC LIBRARY

London’s oldest public reference library is situated in London’s Guildhall in the City of London. The library was founded in 1425 from the terms of a will laid down by the city’s first Lord Mayor, Dick Whittington. The library houses thousands of books, manuscripts, pictures and drawings all of which specialise on City of London topics.  

    

OLDEST RETAILERS

London’s oldest department store is Harrods situated along the Brompton Road in Knightsbridge.

The store was founded by draper Charles Harrod in 1898 and was the first shopping emporium of it’s kind in the world. The store was also the first place in the world to have public escalators fitted and the first store in the world to introduce display stands.

London’s oldest grocery shop is Fortnum and Mason situated in Picadilly. The shop was founded by local grocers William Fortnum and Hugh Mason in 1707.

London’s first shopping arcade was the Burlington Arcade situated near Picadilly Circus.The arcade was built in 1819 by Lord George Cavendish, brother of the then Earl of Burlington, so that his wife and her friends could shop in a clean and safe environment, instead of on London’s dirty and often dangerous streets.The arcade has gone on to be the forerunner of the massive shopping arcades and malls that we use today.

London’s oldest bookshop is Hatchard’s also located in Picadilly.This quaint, olde booke shoppe was established back in 1797 by book publisher and seller, John Hatchard, although his shop is now owned and managed by book retailer Waterstone’s. 

Most of London’s markets go back to medieval times but Smithfield Market in The City of London is reputed to be the oldest of them, having been there for around eight hundred years. Other ancient market sites include Spitalfield’s Market in Whitechapel, Tower Hamlets Market founded in 1638 and the fruit and vegetable market at Borough Market in Southwark which is around two hundred and fifty years old, although the site has been a place of trading since 1014. 

OLDEST STATUE

London’s oldest statue is the Christopher Wren Monument located in the City of London. The two hundred foot high ediface with it’s fluted doric columns was built between 1671 and 1677 from Portland stone and was built in order to commemorate the Great Fire of London. 

  

OLDEST STRUCTURE

The oldest form of any type of structure found in London are three prehistoric timbers found near Vauxhall Bridge, which spans the River Thames between Vauxhall in south London and Millbank in the City of Westminster. Carbon dating performed on the timbers have revealed that these timbers are around six thousand years old.

Vauxhall Bridge is also the site of some 3,500 year old wooden remains of what historians believe were once a bridge. As with the timbers above, the wooden remains can only be seen at low tide. 

However something which does not need to wait for the tide to be exposed are the City of London's, City Walls, which were built between the second and third centuries. Some of the original walls still remain intact at locations at Tower Hill, the Barbican Estate, Coopers Row and St Alphage Gardens.  

  

OLDEST TRAIN STATIONS

London’s first mainline train station was London Bridge Station situated on Tooley Street in Lambeth, which was opened to the public in December 1836.

London’s oldest underground station is Baker Street in the West End, which was built in 1863. Not only is this London’s oldest metro station, but as London’s Tube is the oldest metro system in the world, the station is also the oldest metro station in the world.

The oldest section of the London Underground system (The Tube) is situated between Paddington Station and Farringdon Street Station located on the Hammersmith and City Line, making it the oldest section of metro line in the world. 

    

OLDEST UNIVERSITY

London’s oldest university is University College which is situated in Bloomsbury in central London. The college was founded in 1826 by Scots James Mill and Henry Broughton as a secular alternative to the more famous, religious universities already founded in and around the cities of Oxford and Cambridge.