Lock & Co Hatters: The World's Oldest Hat Shop

Step off St James’s Street into the bow-fronted shop at number 6, and the centuries fold in on themselves. The same Georgian windows that frame today’s window display once framed a young Lord Nelson; the same wooden drawers and hat blocks have served kings, prime ministers and dandies for the best part of 350 years. This is Lock & Co Hatters, the oldest hat shop in the world, and a place that wears its history as lightly as a well-made felt.

Founded in 1676, during the reign of Charles II, Lock & Co has crowned more famous heads than perhaps any address in London. It is family-run still, royal-warranted now to His Majesty The King, and home to one of the great quiet inventions of British style — the bowler hat.

A shop older than the Bank of England

Lock & Co traces its beginnings to 1676, when the milliner Robert Davis set up in business near St James’s, in the London of Charles II. To put that date in perspective, the shop predates the Bank of England (1694), the Union with Scotland (1707) and the United States itself. The Royal Warrant Holders Association lists Lock & Co among the most venerable names in British trade, and the firm is widely recognised as the world’s oldest hat shop.

The current premises at 6 St James’s Street have been home since 1765, when James Lock — the man whose name the shop still bears — and his wife, Mary, moved the business across the road to its present bow-windowed home. Lock had joined as an apprentice in 1747 under Charles Davis, Robert’s son; he married Mary, the Davis daughter, and in time inherited the shop. That thread of family succession has never been cut. The seventh generation of the Lock family is at the helm today, which makes the firm not only the oldest hat shop but one of the oldest family-owned businesses anywhere.

The bowler: a hat born of a problem

The shop’s most celebrated contribution to the world wardrobe began, as the best inventions often do, with a practical complaint. In 1849, Edward Coke — of the Earl of Leicester’s family at Holkham — asked Lock & Co to design a hard, close-fitting hat for his gamekeepers, whose tall top hats kept being knocked off by low branches as they rode.

Lock & Co commissioned the felt-makers Thomas and William Bowler to produce the design. When Coke came to collect the prototype, the story goes that he placed it on the floor and stamped on it twice to test its strength; it held, he paid his money, and the hard hat entered history. To the wider world it became the “bowler”, after its makers; to Lock & Co it has always been the “Coke” (pronounced “cook”), after the man who ordered it. The shop sells the Town Coke to this day — the same lineage of hat, made to the same uncompromising standard.

Nelson, and a hat fit for Trafalgar

Among the ledgers that survive at Lock & Co is an order that gives any visitor pause. In 1800, Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson came to St James’s Street to be fitted, and the shop’s records note his bicorne hats — including a special design with a built-in eyeshade to spare his one good eye from glare at sea.

Nelson’s connection runs to the very end of his story. His final recorded visit was in September 1805, weeks before he sailed for the Battle of Trafalgar, where he fell on the deck of HMS Victory wearing a Lock cocked hat. That a single shop can place itself, through its order books, at the side of England’s greatest naval hero makes Lock & Co feel less like a retailer and more like a keeper of national memory.

Churchill’s silk topper and a Homburg or two

If Nelson belongs to the firm’s first long century, Sir Winston Churchill belongs to its second. He wore a Lock & Co silk top hat for his wedding to Clementine Hozier in 1908, and returned to the shop in 1911 to order the hats that would become part of his public silhouette — among them the Cambridge and the Homburg, and a white yachting cap bearing the insignia of the Royal Yacht Squadron.

Churchill was far from the only luminary to climb the steps. Oscar Wilde was a customer, as was Beau Brummell, the Regency dandy who all but invented understated male elegance. To leaf through the firm’s clientele across three centuries — admirals, statesmen, aesthetes — is to read a guest list of British public life, each name attached to a precise hat.

How a Lock hat is made to fit

Part of the magic at number 6 is that the shop has never quite let go of how things were done. Hats here are still fitted with old-world precision, and the firm’s most curious instrument is the conformateur — a Victorian device of moving pins and levers, placed on the head to trace its exact shape and transfer it to paper.

That outline lets the hatters block a hat to the individual contours of a customer’s head, rather than to a rough notion of “medium” or “large”. The result is comfort that mass production cannot match, and a record that means a returning customer’s shape can be summoned from the archive years later. It is craftsmanship as continuity — the same patient method that once served Nelson serving the visitor who walks in off the street today.

The Crown’s seal of approval

Royal favour has long settled on Lock & Co, and it is recorded in warrants. The firm received a Royal Warrant for the Duke of Edinburgh in 1956, and a second from the Prince of Wales in 1993 — the latter held through the long decades of His Majesty’s time as heir.

The most recent honour came in 2024, when Lock & Co was granted a Royal Warrant of Appointment to His Majesty King Charles III as hatters, among the first warrants of the new reign. A Royal Warrant is not bought; it is earned through years of supplying the Royal Household, and it may be reviewed when a reign changes. For a shop that has dressed royal and noble heads since the seventeenth century, the King’s warrant is less a new departure than the latest line in a very long ledger.

Why it still matters

There is something quietly moving about a place that has done one thing, supremely well, for nearly three and a half centuries — and still does it by hand, in the same rooms, under the same name. Lock & Co is not a museum; it is a working shop, where a felt Coke or a fine Panama can be bought today by anyone willing to climb the steps. That the world’s oldest hat shop remains a family business, warranted to the King and faithful to its old conformateur, feels like exactly the sort of continuity Court & Capital was made to celebrate.

Browse our Royal Warrant Brands stories to meet more of the great British names that have earned the Crown’s approval.

Frequently asked questions

Is Lock & Co really the oldest hat shop in the world?

Yes — Lock & Co is widely recognised as the world’s oldest hat shop, having been founded in 1676 and traded continuously ever since. It is also among the oldest family-owned businesses anywhere, run today by the seventh generation of the Lock family.

Where is Lock & Co Hatters located?

Lock & Co is at 6 St James’s Street, London, in the heart of St James’s near the gentlemen’s clubs and Jermyn Street. The firm has occupied this bow-fronted shop since 1765.

Did Lock & Co invent the bowler hat?

Lock & Co commissioned and sold the first bowler hat in 1849, after Edward Coke asked for a hard, low-crowned hat for his gamekeepers. The felt-makers Thomas and William Bowler made it; Lock & Co still calls it the “Coke” after the man who ordered it.

Why does Lock & Co call the bowler a “Coke”?

The shop calls it the Coke (pronounced “cook”) after Edward Coke, who commissioned the original design in 1849. The name “bowler” comes instead from Thomas and William Bowler, the felt-makers who produced it.

Did Lord Nelson buy his hats from Lock & Co?

Yes — Lord Nelson was a customer from 1800, ordering bicorne hats including a design with a built-in eyeshade. His last recorded visit was in September 1805, shortly before the Battle of Trafalgar.

Does Lock & Co hold a Royal Warrant?

Lock & Co holds a Royal Warrant of Appointment to His Majesty King Charles III as hatters, granted in 2024. It previously held warrants for the Duke of Edinburgh (1956) and the Prince of Wales (1993).

Can anyone buy a hat at Lock & Co today?

Yes — Lock & Co is a working shop open to the public, selling felt hats, Panamas, caps and the famous Town Coke, as well as offering bespoke fittings using its traditional measuring methods. No appointment is needed simply to browse.

Who were Lock & Co’s most famous customers?

Lock & Co’s customers have included Lord Nelson, Sir Winston Churchill, Oscar Wilde and the Regency dandy Beau Brummell, alongside generations of royal and noble patrons.

Dates, names and warrant details are drawn from Lock & Co’s official heritage records (lockhatters.com) and the Royal Warrant Holders Association (royalwarrant.org), correct as of 2026; for the definitive current warrant position see royalwarrant.org.