St Albans has been named one the worst places in Britain for culture by a new study.

Despite boasting a cathedral, four theatres, two museums, the oldest pub in the country and hosting various events such as an annual food and drink festival, the city was placed in the "bottom ten towns for culture" in a list compiled by the Royal Society of Arts.

The list was calculated by tallying up different areas' cultural assets and dividing them by its size.

The think tank compiled the list by looking at "interesting attributes" of each area, such as listed buildings, battlefields, world heritage sites and museums in a bid to help councils make better use of their cultural assets.

St Albans was listed 321st in the UK and joined Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire and Luton in Bedfordshire in the bottom ten.

At the other end of the scale, the City of London, Kensington and Chelsea and Scarborough topped the table.

Howard Salinger, head of publicity for St Albans Musical Theatre Company, said: “The city has amazing culture.

"There are so many theatre options and fabulous restaurants and what some claim to be the oldest pub in England – Ye Olde Fighting Cocks.

"What more culture can you want?”

Joanna Massie, project engagement manager at the RSA, said that although the district had 800 listed buildings, its performance was hampered by low-quality post-war development in places like London Colney.

She also said there was more St Albans could be doing to bring heritage to life with community-led initiatives to list assets of community value – as there is only one pub listed at the moment - and only six blue plaques.

St Albans in the bottom 39 per cent for museums, archives and artefacts, ranked in the bottom 25 per cent for industrial heritage, in the bottom 11 per cent for landscape and natural heritage and in the bottom 11 per cent for parks and open space.

One crumb of comfort is that the city ranked in the top 39 per cent for museums, archives and artefacts.

In an online poll by The Review, 101 people said the city did not lack culture, while 57 disagreed.

Alan Sharp said on Twitter the city had no classical or folk music to speak of and reader Tim Lovell said there was “precious little going on”.

The RSA launched the Heritage Index in collaboration with the Heritage Lottery Fund.