The Old Dick Whittington stood at the end of Cloth Fair at its junction with Kinghorn Street and Middle Street. It was a three-story building with an attic gable and slightly jettied (an overhang) on the second floor.
It first became a beerhouse in 1848, although its owners claimed it at the time that it was the oldest licensed premises in London. There are though many pubs in London older than this.
The row of buildings that the pub was in was acquired by the Corporation of London. The medieval houses along Cloth Fair which had stood for hundreds of years were demolished in 1916 for ’slum clearance’. At the opposite end of the terrace there is one survivor of the slum clearance – 41/42 Cloth Fair.
