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What’s the Oldest Company in the UK?
More than half of the world’s oldest companies are from Japan. Until recently, the oldest company was a family-run Japanese temple builder, Kongo Gumi, that was founded in 578 but it closed in 2006. Its replacement as the oldest company in the world opened in 705. This company is a 35-room hot spring hotel in Japan called Keiunkan, which holds the Guinness World Record for the oldest hotel.
Lots of the oldest companies in the UK are also hotels.
Both The Olde Bell of Hurley, Berkshire, which opened in 1135, and The Old Bell of Malmesbury, Wiltshire, which opened in 1220, were originally guest houses for their respective nearby Christian convents. The eponymous bells would be rung to inform the monks that someone important had arrived and was on their way to the convent. The Angel and Royal was opened by the Knights Templar, which was a group of knights fighting in the crusades and their supporters, in 1203 in Grantham, Lincolnshire.
Unsurprisingly, pubs are also some of the oldest companies in the UK.
