A Victorian shopfront off Trafalgar Square, a name borrowed from a game played by
kings, and eight London barbershops built to look exactly like the original. Everything
else, from the services to the styling to the products, is built for the man walking in
today. This is Pall Mall Barbers.

Pall Mall Barbers is one of the oldest barbershops in the world, and one of the oldest in London. It has been trading from the same address on Whitcomb Street, a few minutes’ walk from Trafalgar Square, since 1896, and now runs nine barbershops in the UK and America: eight across London, and a flagship at New York’s Rockefeller Center, alongside its own range of grooming products. It is a modern barber brand with a very deep set of roots, and the reason it has lasted is that it has kept moving.

A name they were right to shorten
The business opened as the Pall Mall Toilet Saloon. The name raises a smile now, but in
Victorian Britain ‘toilet’ meant the daily ritual of washing, shaving and dressing before facing the world, nothing to do with plumbing. When Richard Marshall bought the shop in 2005 he kept the Pall Mall and, understandably, dropped the rest. The idea underneath it, that grooming is a daily habit rather than an occasional errand, is one that Pall Mall Barbers has kept and built on, and now sums up as Keep Sharp Every Day.

He only discovered the shop’s age by accident. While renovating, he lifted the original Victorian floorboards and found a pristine business card printed with the original name.

Archive research confirmed the date: 1896. Rather than modernise the history away, he
restored the shop’s oak panelling and leather chairs and has replicated that look in every site since, and calls the approach Modern Heritage.

The name works in both directions. The rooms are heritage: oak panelling, leather chairs, a shopfront that has barely changed.

Everything that happens inside them is not. Cutting and styling are contemporary, the service menu has been rebuilt around how men actually live and work now, and the product range is being developed to match. Clients come for a barbershop with genuine credibility behind it, and leave with a modern haircut.

The man who bought it Richard Marshall started in barbering at 12, sweeping hair from the floor of a shop in his
hometown. He was kicked out of school at 15 with no qualifications and could not read or
write until he was 40. He bought the Whitcomb Street shop at 29 and has since grown it from
that single site into an international business, betting against the prevailing trend that the
traditional British barbershop look was an asset rather than something to modernise away.

What he did next was the harder part: a sympathetic modernisation, keeping the room and updating everything else.

For eighteen months until November 2025 he advised the UK Government as a member of
the Small Business Growth Council, working on the industrial strategy for the UK’s 5.6 million
SMEs. He was also awarded an MBE in the King’s New Year Honours List 2026 for services
to international trade, mentoring and to people with dyslexia.
A name borrowed from royalty
Pall Mall itself takes its name from pall-mall, a 17th-century game somewhere between golf
and croquet, played by royalty on the ground where Pall Mall and The Mall now run. By 1896
the name had become shorthand for British craftsmanship and standards, which is precisely
why the original owners borrowed it.
Services
Every appointment begins with a warm welcome. The core offer is men’s haircuts, skin fades,
beard trims and traditional wet shaves, alongside head shaves, hot towel treatments, shaving
lessons and combined haircut-and-shave packages. The wet shave is the traditional half of
the menu; the cutting and styling side is firmly current.
Haircuts start at £17 for a clipper cut, with the standard quality haircut at £37.97 and a
premium 45-minute service at £47.97, rising to £67.97 for longer hair. Skin fades are £43
with a haircut. Beard trims run from £18 to £46, an express shave is £30 and a luxury wet
shave £45. Combination packages range from around £55 to £113. Barbers operate
independently within each shop, so prices and services vary slightly by location and barber.
Products
The Pall Mall Barbers range covers haircare, grooming, men’s shaving products, gift sets
and a range of hair combs, with individual products priced from £7 to £37. Gift packs are
available from £37 to £206, and gift vouchers from £50 to £500.
Who trusts them
Pall Mall Barbers has worked with major brands and is frequently featured in national media
titles.
It has also received the Board of Trade Award by the British Government and hosted a Royal
appointment at its Paddington shop for a conversation on men’s mental health and the role
barbers play in their communities.