Chapter III of Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days opens with
Phileas Fogg repairing to the Reform Club in Pall Mall, London, for a
breakfast of broiled fish with Reading sauce, roast beef with mushrooms, a
rhubarb and gooseberry tart and a morsel of Cheshire cheese, the whole being
washed down with several cups of tea. He proceeds to peruse The Times in the
club's library until a quarter to four.
Such calorific breakfasts have gone out of fashion since the 1870s, but the
Reform Club survives as a London institution. Joining criteria are
“character, talent and achievement”. And with a membership of 2,400 and
full-rate subscription of £1,080, it remains exclusive; in the same league
as the nearby White's, Carlton Club and Athenaeum.
However, a number of less prestigious clubs offer a home from home in the
capital with easier admission and at a much lower cost. For members who live
outside town and visit often, savings on accommodation alone can more than
cover the fees.
The best-known example is the non-profitmaking Royal Over-Seas League, which
was founded in 1910 “to foster international understanding and friendship”.
Its 21,000 members - men and women - have use of London and Edinburgh
clubhouses, where they can eat, meet or sleep, relax with the newspapers and
attend a calendar of events. Robert Newell, the league's director-general,
says: “We are exclusive, but not elitist. We have everyone from peers of the
realm to sheep-shearers.”
Subscriptions are £139 for “country members” and £247 for those in the London
area. Members pay from £90 a night for rooms, with breakfast, in the London
clubhouse, which overlooks Green Park, a minute's walk from the Ritz. The
building comprises Rutland House, where the “Grand Old Duke of York” died in
1827, a second aristocratic Georgian townhouse, Vernon House, and a 1930s
extension with Art Deco details.
When I visit at lunchtime on a sweltering Monday, the garden and communal
rooms overlooking it are buzzing with members, most aged 50-plus. In the
buttery - for less formal dining, with no dress code - some are tucking into
old-school staples, such as Welsh rarebit (£5.75). The architecture is a
treat, though the finish is shabby in spots, with peeling paint and a
mustiness in corridors. The bedrooms I see are small and clean with good
beds and flatscreen televisions. Some overlook the park, others - smarter,
but more corporate in feel - offer views of the London roofscape.
A number of the club's spaces can be hired for private functions. Of those I
see, the best, albeit smallest, is the circular Park Room, which members can
hire for as little as £100. A three-course meal adds £30 a head. The club
also has lecture halls and a recital room and hosts talks, discussion groups
and concerts. Recent speakers have included the authors Vikram Seth and
Louis de Bernières. Some events are free, while others cost about £14, with
drinks.
In the same price bracket are guided tours to places of interest - the gardens
at Highgrove, for instance. The league is also allocated tickets to the
Chelsea Flower Show and Wimbledon, which are balloted to members at face
value. In July a number of members will receive invitations to a garden
party at Buckingham Palace - a perk of the club's royal charter.
Candidates for membership are encouraged to visit the clubhouse for a tour and
must be proposed by a member, or member of staff, and seconded by a “person
of standing” - a doctor or magistrate, for instance.
Mr Newell says that few people are turned down. “In my experience in clubland,
the wrong sort do not join clubs - they go to hotels,” he says.
Reliable company - “no drunks at the bar” - is also a draw for the
121-year-old University Women's Club in Mayfair, which offers “a welcoming
environment and pleasant accommodation for graduate, professional and
business women”. Full-rate subscriptions start at £412 for country members.
Men are welcome to eat or sleep at the club as the guests of members, but
Denise Barnes, who joined in 1986, tells me that it is 95 per cent women.
Mrs Barnes, 60, who is a writer and lives in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, sometimes
spends the night there after trips to the theatre or lectures. “I used to
run for the last train, but I did not feel safe on it,” she says. “Now I
sleep over and can be home for 9am. The rooms are comfortable and old-fashioned.
Sometimes I drop in for lunch, or to read or work in the library, which has
to be the prettiest in London.”
The club has a strong literary connection. Members include P.D. James and
Katharine Whitehorn, and the redbrick clubhouse, designed by T.H. Wyatt, is
reputed to have been the model for the Belchesters' House in Dorothy L.
Sayers' short story The Haunted Policemen.
Members pay from £40 a night for a single room. “It's stupidly cheap,” says
Lorraine Hall, a spokeswoman for the club. “It costs most members less to
stay than to take a cab home.”
Other benefits of membership include events from “library talks”, at £6, to
games evenings and “play readings”, where members take parts in classics
from the likes of Noël Coward. These are free, provided that participants
spend something on food or drink at the bar. A large glass of house wine
costs £3.50, or £1.75 during “happy hour”. Members also have free use of the
club's function rooms for their own events four times a year. Catering adds
£28.50 a head for a three-course meal.
Certain clubs with similar facilities have ties to specific occupations. For
instance, officers in the British and Commonwealth Armed Forces and,
importantly, their close relatives, can join the Army and Navy Club in Pall
Mall, which has rooms from £46 a night. This offers “a unique combination of
the ambience and tradition of an officers' mess, allied with the comfort and
facilities of a home from home”.
Likewise, farmers and landowners can join the Farmers Club, which overlooks
the Thames close to Whitehall and has rooms from £42 a night. Note that both
these clubs, like most others, offer substantial discounts to younger
members (see below).
Of interest to keen travellers, all the clubs named in this article have
“reciprocal arrangements” with other clubs overseas. Members of the Royal
Over-Seas League, for instance, have access to more than 80 of them,
including the Ootacamund Club, a time-warp relic of the Raj in the eponymous
town, nicknamed Snooty Ooty, in South India. Another option is the Muthaiga
Country Club in Nairobi, which was the base of the notorious Happy Valley
set of White Mischief fame during the 1930s and 1940s.
Cheap rates are music to the ears of younger 'clubbers'
To most young adults, clubs are high-decibel nightspots, not venues for a game
of Scrabble or cup of tea. Traditional clubs are therefore having to fight
hard to attract and keep a younger membership.
All the clubs mentioned offer hefty discounts to “young members”. The Royal
Over-Seas League charges 17 to 25-year-olds only £72 a year, against
standard fees of £247 and £139 for town and country members respectively. It
also waives the joining fee of either £124 or £70.
The University Women's Club, meanwhile, offers reduced fees to young members
who are leavers of Girls School Association (fee-paying) schools. The
discounts are on a sliding scale, ranging from 10 per cent to 50 per cent.
The East India Club in St James's Square offers male leavers of public schools
belonging to the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference a seven-year
“J7” membership - to age 25 - for a one-off fee of £275. Applicants require
a letter of recommendation from their head teacher. The J7 membership
includes free gym access, plus rooms from £61 a night.
Members of a number of London clubs, including the Farmers Club and Royal
Over-Seas League, as well as the more exclusive Travellers and Carlton
clubs, receive automatic membership of the Younger Members Inter-Club Group
to age 35. This exists to “ensure that younger members get the very most
from their club membership”. The group also hosts affordable events, from
balls to “club crawls”. For details, go to inter-club.co.uk.
Case Study
Louise Yeoell joined the Royal Over-Seas League when she worked in advertising
in Central London.
“I would meet people for lunch or supper, or simply come and sit in the
garden,” she says. “I like it because it is quirky and not fashionable.
There are no expectations of members, so you will see old ladies nodding off
near a group of lively young people.”
The 46-year-old has since moved to Eastbourne, East Sussex, and works as a
freelance marketing consultant. She visits less often now but sleeps at the
clubhouse whenever she stays in London.
“The rooms are spotless,” she says. “And you can tell them how many minutes
you want your egg done for at breakfast. I don't use hotels now - I would
have to spend £300 a night to get something equivalent.”
