We report optical observations of the field of PSR 1855 + 09, including accurate astrometry and deep CCD imaging. Contrary to an earlier report we do not detect an optical counterpart of PSR 1855 + 09, and find a lower limit of mv = 25.4 to the apparent visual magnitude of the white dwarf companion star. White dwarf cooling calculations, and the fact that the neutron star was formed before the companion became a white dwarf, imply that the age of the neutron star is in excess of ∼ 1.9 × 109 yr, reinforcing the idea that old neutron stars must retain a magnetic field ∼ 109 G.