The Royal Automobile Club

The Royal Automobile Club is a grand club house built between 1908 and 1911 by Charles Mewes and Arthur Davis, with E. Keynes Purchase. It is a building of group value, recognised for its exceptional architectural and historical significance. The structure has a steel frame encased in Portland stone and a slate roof. The exterior design is inspired by 18th-century French architecture, specifically the facades of the Place de la Concorde by Gabriel and the Place Vendôme by J.H. Mansart.

The building is three main storeys high, with a basement and dormered mansard, and is divided into a slightly advanced three-window-wide pedimented central pavilion flanked by six-window-wide wings. The ground floor is channelled, with a central entrance featuring a finely proportioned architrave doorcase with panelled reveals and a stone balustraded balcony in the style of Gabriel. The wings have semicircular arched windows with recessed metal casements. Upper floors feature windows with architraves, cornices, panelled aprons and enriched keys on the second floor. The facade is articulated by a giant Ionic order, engaged to the wings and free-standing in antis to the central pavilion, with wreathed cartouches and pendant trophies. A modillion corniced entablature runs along the top, surmounted by a sculptured pediment. Balustrades and a balustraded parapet front the dormers, with iron flambeau-vases over the terminal piers. A balustraded area with lamp standards and ornate bracket lamps flanks the central entrances. The rear elevation, facing Carlton Gardens, reflects the style of Francois Mansart or Le Vau with its sculpted planes.

The interior is a notable example of Beaux Arts planning, featuring vast public rooms decorated in a late Louis XV/Louis XVI and Grand Siècle style by Boulanger and Remon of Paris, combined with Palladian and neo-Chambers interiors by Lenygon and Morant. A particularly spectacular feature is the basement’s "Pompeian" swimming pool, with scale patterned mosaic columns similar in design to those created by Mewes for the Gallery and Spring Pavilion at Contrexeville Spa. French stone carvers and blacksmiths were employed by Mewes for the facades.