24 Cloth Fair

24 Cloth Fair or the Dick Whittington Inn was a building of the sixteenth century once part of a row of medieval buildings lining the street. It stood at the end of cloth fair with the junction to Kinghorn street. It was a simple three story building once common in the ancient streets of London with an attic gable and slightly jettied (overhang) on the second floor. It was allegedly the oldest Inn in London although it was actually only given a licence in 1848 and there are many pubs in London older than this, one of the oldest is believed to be the Seven Stars on Carey street Holborn. 

The building was acquired by the corporation of London and along with many other medieval houses along cloth fair which had stood for hundreds of years they were demolished in 1916 for 'slum clearance'. On the opposite end of the terrace there is one survivor of the slum clearance (41&42 Cloth fair) which was restored instead of demolished showing that they could all have been retained without too much effort. Today the space is taken by a dull modern building showing that the replacement for this priceless piece of history did not even last one century. Note the Victorian building in the background which has managed to survive mostly unchanged when all other buildings have vanished.

The image below right © from Google maps shows the location of the former Whittington Inn (in red) and around where the picture was taken (in yellow). The image below left © from 1888 shows the Inn in the context of its neighbours where it can be seen to be in a very ancient area of London.