MR PORTER visits Truefitt & Hill, which has been tending to men's grooming needs for more than 200 years.

If you’ve grown weary of rockabilly snipsters and pretentious salons, then perhaps sir would prefer a more conservative/time-honoured styling? No barbers can boast more extensive experience than Truefitt & Hill in London, recognised by Guinness World Records as the oldest anywhere. Over the course of its 212-year history, its hairdressers have snipped countless heads of state, many of whom stare down from the wood-panelled walls of its shop in Mayfair. Past customers include prime ministers Mr William Gladstone and Sir Winston Churchill, whose barber, Mr Holgate, retired in 2001 after 82 years of service.

Truefitt & Hill has also been patronised by assorted bigwigs from Messrs Oscar Wilde and Beau Brummell to Messrs Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant and Fred Astaire. The establishment is rightly most proud of providing the royal treatment. It has groomed British monarchs through nine consecutive reigns and holds the royal warrant for HRH the Duke of Edinburgh. Prince Philip doesn’t come into the shop, on account of his age. Instead, his barber, Ms Wendy Langley, goes to him. Buckingham Palace is just around the corner.

Truefitt & Hill is the world’s oldest barbers, but it is not the oldest barber shop. It has only resided at 71 St James’s Street in the heart of London’s gentlemen’s club district for a comparatively fleeting 40 years. Mr William Francis Truefitt opened for business – as a hairpiece producer, not a hairdresser – at 2 Cross Lane on 21 October 1805, the day of the Battle of Trafalgar. In 1811, he moved with his sole employee, his brother Mr Peter Truefitt, to 40 Old Bond Street, where he was appointed wigmaker to King George III.

Wigs became fashionable after they were adopted in the mid-17th century by King Louis XIV of France and King Charles II. Hair loss was a symptom of syphilis, which was rife, and baldness was therefore stigmatised. Longer wigs also helped to hide the facial sores caused by the condition. The word “bigwig” was coined for rich people who could afford extravagant headpieces.

The French Revolution and prime minister Mr William Pitt the Younger’s tax on the scented powder used to mask wig odour, started the trend for natural, short hair. In the meantime, “Truefitt’s best nutty brown wigs” earned a literary shout-out from, among many others, novelist Mr William Makepeace Thackeray. Mr Charles Dickens also namechecked “the excellent hairdresser”.

The phrase “right as a trivet” was inspired by the perfect fit of Mr Truefitt’s wigs, “trivet” being a corruption of his very apt name.

Truefitt products have been brought up from the wreck of the Titanic, which sank in 1912. Floppy-haired Mr Leonardo DiCaprio was clearly not a regular. In 1935, Truefitt acquired Mr Edwin Hill’s salon and moved into larger premises on Old Bond Street. The company now has locations in the US, Canada, Australia, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, South Korea and Azerbaijan.

It is to St James’s Street, however, that the most devout heritage lovers make a pilgrimage, the tourists who fill the chairs on Saturdays contrasting with the suit-clad and black Oxford-shod weekday crowd. The clientele can include several generations of the same family. According to fresh-faced barber Mr David Olds, one regular recently brought his 10-month-old son in for a trim. Haircuts and wet shaves, both £45, are Truefitt & Hill’s mainstay, but face and head massages and manicures, which pre-date our modern fascination with grooming, are also offered.

Although the waistcoated barbers possess the technical skills to replicate, say, Mr Zayn Malik’s latest avant-garde coiffure, it’s perhaps fair to say that most customers come to Truefitt & Hill for traditional services, such as the application of a fragranced tonic water to the scalp mid-haircut that will leave you catching a delightful whiff of yourself for days afterwards. Or the policy of no mobile phones or music in the shop, which preserves a rare atmosphere of calm. As you lie back for a shave and think of England’s sovereigns in the various portraits, you can easily feel like a prince, if not a king.

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