Description

TQ 2980 SE CITY OF WESTMINSTER PALL MALL, SW1 82/66 (south side) 5.2.70 No. 104: The Reform Club G.V. I Gentlemen's Club, 1837-41 by Charles Barry. Portland stone ashlar, with rusticated quoins, low pitched tiled roof. The mature accomplishment of Barry's palazzo style first introduced by him at the Travellers' Club next door. 2 main storeys and attic storey, on podium-basement. 9 windows wide with 8-window west return and garden elevation repeating entrance front. Central entrance, approached by flight of steps, has tall, Peruzzi-inspired Roman doorway with eared architrave and carved jambs, rich double consoles supporting dentilled and modillioned cornice-hood. Recessed original casement windows, those on ground floor in architraves rising from pedestal-course with console-flanked apron panels below and consoled cornices above; the 1st floor windows treated as Ionic columned and pedimented aedicules also rising from pedestal-course with shallow, console bracketed balustered balconettes, their bases as forward breaks in the ground floor cornice; architraved attic casements with sills breaking from sill course; the whole front finished off with a finely carved great Roman eaves cornice carried all the way round. Tall panelled chimney stacks with bracketed cornices. Stone balustrade to area raised on rusticated plinth with 2 iron lampstandards surmounting the dies flanking steps. To left is a slightly recessed 2 storey, 1-window wide extension with rusticated semicircular arched doorway and 1st floor balustrade to set back 1st floor. The grand club interior also conceived in the Italian manner, organised about a central almost square saloon "cortile" with coved glazed roof, the ambulatories on both floors screened by a 2 storey peristyle with Corinthian yellow marble columns above Ionic ground floor ones; Italian Renaissance staircase rising between solid walls to return in 2 flights; magnificent library behind the garden front divided into 3 sections by columns; morning room with half-size copy of the Parthenon frieze; splendidly rich colour scheme; much of original furniture as designed by Barry etc. (Loose items of furniture not covered by listing.) Following the Travellers' Club, a most influential design. Survey of London; Vol. XXIX.

Listing NGR: TQ2963780274

External Links

• Reform Club at Wikipedia
• Reform Club official website
• Wikidata Q962177

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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