An 1888 Ordnance Survey Map of London, with the positions of Birch’s club photographs marked up. (Picture credit: National Library of Scotland.)
George Henry Birch (1842-1904) was in many ways an archetypal Victorian: an antiquary, architect, archaeologist and artist, who was probably best known in his lifetime as the Curator of Sir John Soane’s Museum.
Subsequent generations probably remember Birch - if they remember him at all - as a keen photographer, who published a series of photographic albums from the mid-1890s to the early 1900s. And Birch’s detailed photographs of busy central London streetscapes make him one of the best visual sources for the 1890s peak of Clubland.
The above contemproary map has been marked up to show a route one may follow, tracing his photographs of club exteriors. Several of the landscapes he captured have since vanished.
Piccadilly
1) The Naval & Military Club’s Cambridge House building on Piccadilly, which it occupied from 1865 until 1999. The building is currently undergoing extensive renovation, for reopening as a new club, tied to a luxury hotel being built behind it. The small building on the far-left, which would later serve as a bridge to the neighbouring American Club, has since been demolished and replaced with a similar structure.
St. James’s Street
2) On the right is the Devonshire Club, at the top of St. James’s Street, looking down. You can read my profile of the Devonshire Club here. The building still stands, but has been boarded up for many years, and is currently owned by a Russian oligarch. In the middle of the photograph, you can also make out the outline of the New University Club, which was profiled here, and has long since been demolished. On the far left is the frontage of White’s.
3) A view down St. James’s Street, with the exterior of White’s more clearly visible on the left. This picture was taken in 1897, during the Diamond Jubilee celebrations of Queen Victoria, and so the Club commemorated this with a decorative canopy outside.
St. James’s Square
4) A view of the north-west corner of St. James’s Square, with the East India United Service Club in the centre (now renamed to the East India, Devonshire, Sports and Public Schools’ Club, or simply the East India Club for short). Apart from the disappearance of some nearby iron railings and gas-lamps, the view remains largely unchanged today.
Pall Mall
5) The eastward view down Pall Mall, from the corner with St. James’s Street and St. James’s Palace. While Berry Brothers & Rudd wine merchants on the left remains unchanged, the most of the remaining buildings on the left have long since gone - as has the very conspicuous building on the far right. This was built in the 1870s for the short-lived Junior Naval and Military Club, and hosted several clubs over the years - by the mid-1890s, it was the New Oxford & Cambridge Club, which it remained until its dissolution in 1921. The building was subsequently demolished and the site redeveloped into Hambro’s private bank - with the new building currently hosting the wine-lovers’ club 67 Pall Mall.
6) A closer look at 66-68 Pall Mall, which was the New Oxford & Cambridge Club from 1894 until 1921. The original Oxford & Cambridge Club - which survives to this day - can be seen to the left, three doors down, with its 1830s building suffering a significant amount of pollution damage, a common feature amidst the 19th/early 20th century London smog.
7) The longest-lived clubhouse of the Army & Navy Club, which stood on the corner of Pall Mall and St. James’s Square from 1851 until 1962, designed by Charles Octavius Parnell and Alfred Smith. While this was the original building, by the time of this photograph it had needed to be refaced, as the original Caen stone fared poorly in the smog-filled 19th century London climate, and so in 1886 the surface was cut out and replaced with Portland stone.
8) An eastward view down Pall Mall, from outside the Carlton Club, on the right-hand side. This was the Carlton’s third clubhouse, which stood on the site of the second, that had originally been erected in 1836. The third building was completed by 1856, and stood there until its bombing in 1940 - though it was comprehensively re-clad by Reginald Blomfield, so that its appearance had changed significantly after 1923.
In the above photograph, beyond the Carlton Club from right to left, can be seen the Reform Club, the Athenæum, and the United Service Club. (The Travellers Club, located between the Reform and the Athenæum, is just about hidden from view at this angle.) All these buildings remain today, save for the change of use of the United Service Club as the Institute of Directors. All the buildings seen on the north side of the street (to the left of the photograph) have since been demolished and redeveloped - many within a decade of the photograph being taken.
9) A clearer view of Sydney Smirke’s clubhouse for the Carlton Club, as it appeared from 1856 until 1923. To the left is the end of Buckingham House, then in use alongside the neighbouring Cumberland House as the Ordnance Office and War Office. (The site is now occupied by the Royal Automobile Club.) On the right, from right to left, can be seen the same line-up of clubs mentioned above, the Reform Club, the Travellers Club, the Athenæum, and the United Service Club.
10) Another view of Sydney Smirke’s now-vanished Carlton Club on Pall Mall, this one looking back to the western end of the street. To its left can be seen the government offices of Buckingham House and Cumberland House, on the site of the present-day RAC. The outline of the New Oxford & Cambridge Club at 66-68 Pall Mall looms large in the distance. Note the gas-lamps on the north side of the street, long since vanished.
Waterloo Place
11) This 1896 photograph of the Athenæum, with Carlton House Terrace and the Duke of York column in the distance, is a largely unchanged view today. The main differences - aside from obvious pollution damage to the Athenæum’s sixty-year-old stucco exterior and the pavement long since having been resurfaced - is the top of the Athenæum club-house. Three years later, in 1899, a two-storey annexe would be constructed on top, adding facilities but distorting the proportions of Burton’s original club-house. This is therefore one of the last photographs of the Athenæum’s clubhouse in its original form.
12) This view of Waterloo Place, looking north-east, remains recognisable thanks to the Guards Crimean War Memorial in the centre, which remains to this day. Every other building in the frame, however, has since been demolished and redeveloped. The dimensions of the space remain the same, with the successor buildings all being of a similar height.
13) The United Service Club can be seen on the right, its 1820s John Nash building refaced in the 1850s by Decimus Burton, and showing clear signs of pollution damage here. Since the 1975 closure of the Club, the building has been the Institute of Directors, and indeed today its exterior appears in better condition than shown here. The other buildings in view have since been demolished.
14) This westward view down Pall Mall shows the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 1897. In particular, the way in which clubhouses erected temporary stands for viewing the procession, and were decked out in celebratory decorations, has often been reflected on Royal occasions over the last two centuries. From left to right, the United Service Club, Athenæum, Travellers Club, Reform Club, and Carlton Club. On the far right of the image in the distance is the flagpole of the New Oxford & Cambridge Club.
Northumberland Avenue
15) The terracotta-clad Constituitonal Club on Northumberland Avenue is in the centre of this photograph looking up Northumberland Avenue towards Trafalgar Square, with the clubhouse occupying the corner with Northumberland Street. My portrait of the Constitutional Club can be found here. On the far-right of the photograph, bordering the out-of-shot Colonial Club (which was later re-named the Empire Club, and then the Commonwealth Club), the building was then in use as a Turkish bath, much loved by P. G. Wodehouse. It is now a gym. All of the buildings in the centre of the frame have since been demolished and redveloped, while the buildings on the far left still stand.
Thames Embankment
16) View from the Thames Embankment - artificial land, which had only been laid down two decades earlier, in the 1870s. Aside from the disapearance of the street lighting and railings, most of the features remain present today - the National Liberal Club (whose clubhouse had been completed in 1887) on the left, the Metropole hotel (now the Cornithia) in the centre, and on the right, the Playhouse Theatre with Craven Street behind it. The main changes today, both dating to the 1980s, are the redevelopment of Northumberland Avenue in the centre, and the construction of a much-expanded Charing Cross station, looming large in the background.
All photographs by Birch are from the author’s own private collection.
You can view the full and varied backlog of Clubland Substack articles, by clicking on the index below.
Index
Articles are centred around several distinct strands, so the below contains links to the main pieces, sorted by theme.
A minor correction in respect of plates 9 and 10: the building adjoining the Carlton Club to the west was not Cumberland House but Buckingham House, by Sir John Soane. Both houses had been acquired by the Government and housed part of the War Office.