St James's Hat Shop Open Since 1676: Lock & Co. Hatters

Lock & Co. Hatters has sold hats from No. 6 St James's Street, London SW1A 1EF, since 1765, and the business traces its founding to 1676, which makes 2026 its 350th year. The shop opens Monday to Saturday from 9:30am to 5:30pm and is closed on Sunday, and it no longer asks visitors to book: you can walk in at any time during those hours. A Gill tweed flat cap costs £245, a trilby from the Atlantic range £395, and a silk top hat £3,600, all with UK VAT included.

The company's own timeline starts in 1676, when the milliner Robert Davis opened a hat shop on St James's Street to serve the fashionable upper classes. James Lock, grandson of the merchant who ran No. 6 as a coffee house, was apprenticed to the Davis family in 1747, married Mary Davis in 1759, and in 1765 the couple moved the business across the street into No. 6. The firm describes that building as the oldest hat shop in the world, and it is still family owned.

The ledgers read like a history lesson. Admiral Lord Nelson ordered a cocked hat and cockade here in 1800 and settled his account in September 1805, weeks before Trafalgar. Beau Brummell bought two round hats in 1808. In 1849 Edward Coke commissioned a hard, low-crowned hat for his gamekeepers, which the shop had made by Thomas Bowler & Son, and the result is still called the Coke here rather than the bowler. The firm holds a Royal Warrant of Appointment to King Charles III.

Every price on the shop's site is listed in pounds with VAT included, and the range is wider than the frontage suggests. Tweed flat caps from the Gill range sit at £245 and Muirfield bakerboy caps at £275. The Atlantic Green Trilby and the Haydock Navy Fedora are both £395. Panamas run from The 35 Panama at £365 to the Jesse at £425, and the plain Silk Top Hat is £3,600, the most expensive men's hat on the list.

The 350th anniversary has brought a limited release every month of 2026. Recent ones on the anniversary page include The 350 Gill Flat Cap at £295, The 350 Peacehaven Panama at £345, The 350 Wide Brim Panama at £495, The 350 Ultrafine Wool Fairbanks Trilby at £495 and The 350 Estate Faux Fur Hat at £645. If you want a hat that will always say which year you bought it, those are the ones to ask about at the counter.

Soft felt and straw hats are simply tried on for size and shape. Hard hats are different. The shop still uses a conformateur, the French device invented in 1852 that maps the exact shape of a head, to fit top hats and Cokes, so a hard hat can be made to sit evenly rather than pinching at the temples. Allow extra time if that is what you came for.

If you cannot get to London, the shop offers video consultations for hard hat fittings and for women's couture millinery, booked through the contact form, and its hatsmiths, Freddie Deane and Eliška Murray, handle repairs and bespoke commissions by email at hatsmith@lockhatters.co.uk. Customers also get 28-day returns. Skip the Limited Edition 350th Tankard at £145 unless you collect the brand: it is a souvenir, and the same money goes a long way towards a cap you will actually wear.

The customer list did not stop with Nelson. The shop's timeline records Oscar Wilde buying a black fedora in 1882 and Winston Churchill wearing a silk top hat from the shop at his wedding in 1908. Those names still bring in visitors who come mainly to see the shop, which is fine as long as you remember it is a working shop: ask before you photograph, and let the staff hand you hats from the cases.

The women's side has grown under the Lock Couture label by milliner Awon Golding, with pieces such as the Aries Pale Pink Fedora at £1,395 and the Tracey Black Top Hat at £1,995. Couture is also one of the two subjects the shop offers by video consultation, so it is worth booking that call before a wedding or race day rather than turning up the week before.

The shop's care guide is practical. Felt hats are cleaned with steam from a household kettle and a hard-bristle hat brush, using short strokes that follow the fibre. Stubborn marks can be lifted with lighter fuel or dry-cleaning fluid tested first on the inside of the headband. A wet felt hat should be dried with a clean cloth and never put on a radiator, which shrinks the fibres. Store felt in a hat box out of direct sunlight.

The Nomad, Rambler and Voyager trilbies are designed to be rolled for travel. Turn the brim down, push the crown into a dome, roll along the crease and store the hat cone-down in a tube, then unroll and reshape it as soon as you arrive. If a hat needs more than that, email the hatsmiths before you bring it in.

The shop sits on the slope that runs down to St James's Palace, whose Tudor gatehouse closes the view at the bottom of the street. Berry Bros. & Rudd, the wine merchant, is a few doors away, and the alley beside it leads into Pickering Place, one of the smallest squares in London. Walk up to Piccadilly for Fortnum & Mason, or cross into Green Park for a bench under the plane trees.

If No. 6 does not have your size in stock, Jermyn Street is a three-minute walk east. Bates Hatters trades inside the Hilditch & Key shop there, and Laird Hatters has a Jermyn Street branch that opens on Sundays, when No. 6 is closed.

Address: Lock & Co. Hatters, 6 St James's Street, London SW1A 1EF. Hours: Monday to Saturday 9:30am to 5:30pm, closed Sunday. Email: shop@lockhatters.co.uk. Nearest Underground station: Green Park, on the Jubilee, Piccadilly and Victoria lines. No appointment is needed to visit, and video consultations are booked online.

Prices quoted come from the brand's online shop with UK VAT included: Gill flat caps £245, Muirfield bakerboys £275, Atlantic Green Trilby £395, Jesse Panama £425 and Silk Top Hat £3,600. Ask the Karpo APP for a lunch spot near Piccadilly before or after your fitting.