The Reform Club

The Reform Club is a gentlemen’s club built between 1837 and 1841 by Charles Barry. It is constructed of Portland stone ashlar with rusticated quoins and a low-pitched tiled roof. The design represents the mature development of Barry's palazzo style, first seen at the nearby Travellers' Club. The building has two main storeys and an attic, set upon a podium-basement. It is nine windows wide on the main facade, with the west return and garden elevation mirroring the entrance front and featuring eight windows.

The central entrance is accessed by a flight of steps and features a tall, Roman doorway inspired by Peruzzi, with an eared architrave and carved jambs. Rich double consoles support a dentilled and modillioned cornice hood. The ground floor windows are recessed and set within architraves that rise from a pedestal course, featuring console-flanked apron panels below and consoled cornices above. First-floor windows are treated as Ionic columned and pedimented aedicules, also rising from a pedestal course and incorporating shallow, console-bracketed balustraded balconettes that project slightly beyond the ground-floor cornice. The attic casements are architraved, with sills that break from the sill course. The facade is finished with a finely carved Roman eaves cornice that runs around the entire building. Tall, panelled chimney stacks with bracketed cornices are present. A stone balustrade sits above a rusticated plinth and includes two iron lamp standards flanking the steps.

To the left is a slightly recessed two-storey extension, one window wide, featuring a rusticated semicircular arched doorway and a first-floor balustrade.

The interior, also designed in the Italian manner, is organised around a central, almost square, saloon with a coved glazed roof. Ambulatories on both floors are screened by a two-storey peristyle featuring Corinthian yellow marble columns above Ionic ground-floor columns. An Italian Renaissance staircase rises between solid walls and returns in two flights. A magnificent library lies behind the garden front and is divided into three sections by columns. A morning room contains a half-size replica of the Parthenon frieze. The interior also has a splendidly rich colour scheme and retains much of its original furniture, designed by Barry. (Loose items of furniture are not included in the listing.) The design was highly influential, following on from Barry’s work on the Travellers’ Club.