From the archives: Inside Annabel's in 1980

A rare find from the archives here: a segment from a 1980 ITV Thames Report documentary which noted, “Annabel’s has never before been shown on television” - until then. This offers a rare glimpse of the now-vanished original premises of the London club, which it occupied from 1963 until 2018, as run by its founder Mark Birley.

Daily Mail gossip columnist Nigel Dempster (the first person Ian Hislop sacked on becoming Private Eye editor) is seen describing Annabel’s as “the only place you can see Prince Charles dancing cheek-to-cheek with whomsoever”, and gushing about how rarely he could get in as a guest.

Mark Birley in 1980, giving a rare interview on camera.

The clip includes a rare screen appearance by Mark Birley himself - although he often gave interviews to trusted print journalists, he could be more wary about appearing onscreen. Here, he sniffed:

“I wouldn’t make a gossip columnist a member, I think, because that’s a direct intrusion into the privacy of members who come here.”

The original reception of Annabel’s in 1980.

This original incarnation of Annabel’s was opened by former advertising man Birley in 1963. It was located in the cavernous basement of 44 Berkeley Square.

The building upstairs, the sole surviving building designed by William Kent, had opened as the late John Aspinall’s Clermont Club in 1962 - a gambling club which made the most of the recently-relaxed gambling laws for Aspinall to swindle his wealthy Arab clientele with fixed gaming tables. A decade later, Aspinall sold it to Playboy Enterprises, and it spent the next decade as a Playboy Club.

Annabel’s below was leased out to Birley to run as an entirely independent club in its own right, very much in his own image, with an idiosyncratic but high-end blend of luxuries.

Table places are set in the gloomy, cramped but cavernous dining area of Annabel’s in 1980.

Richard Davenport-Hines writes in Birley’s Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry:

“The balance between Birley's stylish, old-money clients and the parvenus, who were indispensable to the profitability of his club, was always precarious. There was an influx of property developers and ill-starred secondary bankers in the 1970s. During the 1980s Arab businessmen with their escorts were conspicuous at its dining tables. The crisis in the Lloyds insurance market had a greater impact on Annabel’s than any other event: the old-money membership greatly receded in the early 1990s. After 2000 Annabel’s membership lists were revived and enhanced by his daughter, India Jane, who refitted the club and made Annabel’s a sexy brand for the rich young crowd working in the hedge funds and private equity companies with headquarters near Berkeley Square.”

The original bar at Annabel’s, in 1980.

The narrator of the documentary noted, “He sells luxurious privacy, the way his father [Oswald Birley] sold paintings.” Viewers are treated to a glimpse of the main reception at the foot of the basement entrance, the cavernous dining area with vaulted ceilings behind it, the bar, and one of the private rooms.

As well as making extensive use of the historic building’s existing basement, further basement space was dug out by Birley to provide additional room for the Club. The emphasis of the decor was on intimacy, and small scale, with high-quality food and wine, and an absolute guarantee of discretion. It took a decade for the Club to turn a profit - though it eventually became extremely profitable - due to the substantial financial outlay involved, and Birley’s refusal to cut costs.

A composite showing a tracking shot across one of the private rooms of Annabel’s in 1980. A portrait of the young Mark Birley, by his father Oswald Birley, hangs on the right.

After its sale by Birley just prior to his death in 2007, Annabel’s continued to be based under its current management at 44 Berkeley Square until 2018, when it moved two doors up to its present address, a round-the-clock four-storey entertainment complex at 46 Berkeley Square.

The 1980 film also shows the exterior of Harry’s Bar in Mayfair, another Birley club which had only opened the year before. Dempster briskly noted:

“Mark Birley is the person behind it, he’s (a) the person whose name is there, although the finance comes partially from elsewhere…”

foreshadowing the subsequent falling-out between Mark Birley and his silent partner in the venture, James Sherwood. This resulted in Birley eventually buying out the remaining interest in 2006, before selling Harry’s Bar (and other clubs including Annabel’s) the following year.

A dining room of the current Annabel’s, in the new premises it has occupied since 2018.

(I own nothing of the video, and make no claim to do so; but as it has been publicly shared by Thames TV via their archival channel on YouTube, I thought it would be of interest to Clubland Substack readers.)

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