The Athenaeum

TQ 2980 SE CITY OF WESTMINSTER PALL MALL, SW1 82/62 (south side) No. 107: The Athenaeum 5.2.70 G.V. I Gentlemen's Club. 1826-30 by Decimus Burton for this famous club for "scientific and literary men and Artists" initiated by Croker. Stucco faced, concealed roof. Highly accomplished Graeco-Roman design balancing Nash's former United Services Club. 2 principal storeys and unobtrusive set back attic storey (added by T.E. Colcutt 1899-1900) , basement. 7-window wide entrance front to Waterloo Place, 5-window wide elevations to Pall Mall and garden. Smooth rusticated ground floor has central tetrastyle Roman Doric portico to Waterloo Place with coupled columns and terminal antae on pedestals with steps between them; ground floor plate glass sashes in architraves with plain margins, recessed for one order with voussoired flat arches. 1st floor windows are French casements in architraves with flanking panelled strips and acanthus consoles carrying cornices. The alternative triglyphs of the Doric entablature over the ground floor are ingeniously developed as brackets supporting the 1st floor cornice-balcony with slender cast iron Grecian baluster rails and corner pedestals bearing tripod lamps; stone balustrade over portico, the centre bay solid and surmounted by pedestalled gilt statue of Athene carved by E.H. Baily. A particular feature of the design is John Henning junior's version of the Panathenaic frieze, carved in Bath stone now painted a la Wedgwood, which together with the enriched cornice and balustraded parapet grandly finishes off the "piano nobile". Panelled stone parapet to the area of 1894. Very distinguished interior with basilican entrance hall, the "nave" tunnel vaulted and original light fittings between the Grecian columns, redecorated by Alma Tadema; grand club staircase rises straight out of the hall in one flight to split into two and returns to 1st floor landing over the hall's tunnel vault, lit by octagonal dome - the upper part of intermediate landing wall treated as pseudo-portico with gilded plaster cast of the Apollo Belvedere; morning room and coffee room suitably Grecian and great tripartite drawingroam behind garden front on 1st floor; main library with gallery and spiral staircase of 1856 by Burton, etc. Survey of London; Vol. XXIX.

Listing NGR: TQ2968880301