It's a long way to Tipperary. Unless you live in London, in which case just head on down to Fleet Street where you'll find the oldest Irish pub in town: The Tipperary.

The Tipperary is already decked out with decorations ahead of one of the biggest events in its calendar, St Patrick's Day on March 17. Steven Rowlands, who owns the pub, has already shipped in 20 barrels of Guinness ahead of the big day. He expects they'll all go.

"If someone puts a pint of Guinness down in front of you that goes yellow on top, it's a bad one," Rowlands said as he showed IBTimes UK how to pull the perfect pint of Guinness. "Send it back and ask for another one. Or get your money back and come to The Tipperary. Simple as."

In its history, the site has been the Whitefriars monastery and a famous clockmaker's workshop. But it has mostly been occupied by a pub, the first of which was built in 1605 and called The Boar's Head

In the early 1700s, the S. G. Mooney & Sons Brewery Chain of Dublin bought The Boar's Head and transformed it into one of London's earliest Irish pubs. It soon became the first pub outside of Dublin to serve bottled and draught Guinness.

The pub, which was renamed The Tipperary at the end of the First World War, survived the Great Fire of London in 1666, Adolf Hitler's bombing campaign in the early 1940s, and over three centuries of raucous St Patrick's Day festivities.

Now it is one of London's best-known and top-rated Irish pubs, regularly winning plaudits for the quality of its Guinness.

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