London has more private members’ clubs than any other city. There are clubs for every interest, profession, and background: from actors, aristocrats, architects, artists, and clergymen; to sailors, soldiers, journalists, fishermen, and spies. Historian and author Andrew Jones will illustrate some of the most beautiful and unusual of these clubs spanning 300 years of architecture and design. He will highlight the clubs’ original interiors and exquisite furnishings, as well as showcase the extraordinary collections they hold. For example, he will reveal the concealed bookcase door in the library of The Travellers Club, show the taxidermy fish at the Flyfishers’ Club, and discuss the club that “Winnie-the-Pooh built”. Also, he will show some of the more intimate spaces —The Beefsteak Club’s loos are wallpapered in facsimiles of members’ signatures in the club’s candidates’ book, while Home House lavatories display relics associated with Soviet spy Anthony Blunt, who once lived upstairs. From bohemian to bling, shabby to chic, quirky to grand, Mr. Jones will celebrate the city’s strangest and most elegant private dining and drinking establishments.

Andrew Jones is an author who has lived in Mayfair—London’s club land—for over 20 years. He is the author of The Buildings of Green Park, A Tour of Certain Buildings, Monuments and Other Structures in Mayfair and St. James’s. He writes about cities for the Financial Times and has also written for Apollo, Blueprint, Drawing Matter and The London Gardener as well as pieces on London for The World of Interiors and the Londonist. His lecture is drawn from his latest book The London Club: Architecture, Interiors, Art (Fall 2025).