In the St James’s area of central London is the oldest cigar merchant in the world, JJ Fox & Robert Lewis. The tobacco business was started by Robert Lewis in 1787. James J Fox was formed in Dublin in 1881 and moved to London in 1947. The two businesses were combined in 1992. Although this luxury cigar store is one of the three oldest surviving retailers in St James’s Street, visitors shouldn’t be intimidated. Why, you ask? Because down in the basement is a free museum open to the public. Many of the items on display at the Freddie Fox Museum date to the time of the store’s original opening in 1787, including a Bristol Glass pipe. The oldest box of Havana Cigars in the world from the Great Exhibition of 1851 are also part of the museum. And with famous customers like Oscar Wilde and Winston Churchill, visitors can sit in the chair where Churchill selected his favourite cigars as well as a letter from the High Court that listed Wilde’s balance with the store as seven shillings and three pence. The diminutive size of the room means the display cases are a bit overcrowded, but this leads to a certain amount of intimacy, in that visitors feel more like they are in a private collection rather than a public museum. And where else in London can you legally smoke indoors, and in Winston Churchill’s personal chair, no less?
JJ Fox & Robert Lewis, London
