Photographs MARK READ
Words by MATT MAYTUM

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A London institution since the 1840s, this grand Italianate palace on Pall Mall has hosted numerous film and literature greats including James Bond, Sherlock Holmes and Paddington Bear. Hollywood Authentic invites you inside the exclusive private members’ space that is a home for progressive thinking and a bastion of tradition: the Reform Club…

It’s fitting that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself was once a member of London’s exclusive Reform Club; the palazzo that has been the Club’s home since 1841 (five years after the club was founded) has served as a shooting location for countless sleuthing films and shows. At least three films based on Doyle’s most famous creation, Sherlock Holmes, have filmed within its Italianate walls. Billy Wilder’s The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), Guy Ritchie’s 2009 reboot starring Robert Downey Jr., and Will Ferrell’s comedy interpretation, Holmes & Watson (2018), have all used the rarefied setting for a touch of historic British glamour. True to the Conan Doyle tradition, the spirited spin-off featuring Sherlock’s kid sister, Enola Holmes (2020), also paid a visit.

The Reform Club has also hosted a broader variety of screen spies, from both the big and small screen. Two generations of 007 movies have visited the Club’s gilded interiors: Pierce Brosnan’s Die Another Day (2002) and Daniel Craig’s Quantum of Solace (2008). Brosnan even had a fencing match with Madonna in the building, which probably contravenes several guidelines in the Club’s strict rulebook. Operation Mincemeat – which features Ian Fleming as a character – also filmed here.

Spies flock to the Reform Club like moths to a flame, for reasons that aren’t particularly complicated. Situated on Pall Mall in the heart of St. James’s, minutes from Buckingham Palace, it’s at the heart of London’s most influential district. Politics and decision-making are entwined in its legacy, and the building itself has a rare grandeur and exclusivity (spies needing to be more mindful than most of the company they keep).

When the Reform Club was established in 1836, its initial membership brought together the Radicals and Whigs, progressive factions that would later merge to form the Liberal Party. Requiring a grand hub in which to hold their meetings, the Building Committee invited several prominent architects to submit ideas, and Sir Charles Barry – notable for his work on the Houses of Parliament – won the job of designing the political headquarters. The Committee was seeking a home that would ‘excel all other clubs in splendour and convenience’.

Barry had studied in Rome and was inspired by the Italian Renaissance, a notable shift from the gothic style of the ‘Palace of Westminster’. Of particular inspiration to Barry was Rome’s Palazzo Farnese, completed in 1859 by Michelangelo. Running over budget, the clubhouse cost £82,000 to build, and has remained largely unchanged since then, save for careful restoration. The symmetrical Portland stone facade boasts nine bay windows over three floors, and the Italianate door case, at the top of a steep flight of stone steps, is an almost-modest entryway into such a grand and imposing building, which received Grade I-listed status in 1970.

The politics of the Reform Club are not what they once were. It now regards itself as a politically neutral, albeit progressive, space. As early as the 1920s, it had become a purely social spot, though it did still attract important political figures (Churchill resigned after a spat in 1913). It was the first of the traditional gentlemen’s clubs to welcome women as members, which it did in 1981. Though its political leanings may have changed, elsewhere the insides are preserved in time, which is why it’s such a popular spot for filming – used as often for its intricate period detail in the likes of The Four Feathers (2002), Nicholas Nickleby (2002) and Miss Potter (2007) as it is for modern espionage thrillers. And its popularity in fiction is nothing new: Jules Verne chose to start and end Phileas Fogg’s globe-trotting journey Around the World in Eighty Days, published in 1872, at the Reform Club; and where Michael Palin bookended his celebrated TV show following the same route and deadline.

After entering through the main door, the so-called ‘saloon’ is palatially impressive, rising up above to a spectacular atrium, overlooked by the gallery and covered by a glass roof comprising 750 lead crystal lozenges. The mosaic tiled floor of this wow-factor room is hued blue and brown, recalling the Whig political colours (the tones now seen in the club’s signature tie). Though the Club dress code is particular (gentlemen must wear a jacket and shirt with full collar, ladies are required to dress with similar formality), Paddington Bear’s signature duffel coat and hat were allowed through the doors when he arrived there (the building played the Geographers’ Guild) looking for answers to his past in Paddington (2014). The grand room required little dressing to play such a learned institution; viewers can spot former members and founders on the walls as Paddington wanders through. Today, Queen Victoria’s bust presides over the real fire warming the place. For olfactory time travel, the smell of old-fashioned coal smoke permeates throughout this centrepiece space, which leads off to several other key areas in the building.

The restaurant – still known as The Coffee Room from days when a cup of Joe first became fashionable – runs the entire width of the building and overlooks the garden. At the time of the clubhouse’s creation, the kitchens were a priority. Barry designed them in collaboration with noted Victorian chef Alexis Soyer, a French expat who still inspires the restaurant today. His signature dish – lamb cutlets Reform – remains on the menu, its sauce a secret recipe passed down for posterity. Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi twist on a Bond movie, Tenet (2020), saw John David Washington’s protagonist meet Michael Caine for an intel briefing over a (rushed) lunch, with the establishment formality a signifier of the previously hidden strata our hero now has access to. For a more casual dining option, the so-called ‘Strangers’ Room’ offers a buffet lunch most of the year round. Or for that extra indulgent touch, there are bells on the walls that members can press for waiter service for food and drinks.

The Library, Smoking Room and Card Room all also lead off from the Gallery. The gold-leaf-accentuated library is home to over 85,000 books, and offers a sanctuary for quiet repose with a book. Many of the members are authors and their latest works are contributed to the shelves. The Library, established in 1841, will be one of the most recognisable parts of the Reform Club for cinephiles, its mirrored fireplace overmantels boosting the scale and drama of the room. Among the scenes shot here is a moment from the first season of Bridgerton that would no doubt make the founding members blush. In the corner of the Library is a red velvet seat that belonged to former prime minister H.H. Asquith. No one is allowed to sit in it. And be sure not to scale the Victorian library steps that wheel around the room to reach higher shelves. These aren’t the only rules you have to follow, should you ever find yourself inside.

No mobile calls or laptops are allowed, apart from in designated areas (the Study Room is recommended for undisturbed work). The original rules dictate that ‘the open transaction of business is forbidden’. Also a no-no? The games of Hazard and Chance are blacklisted, although for the competitive-minded the Reform Club does have an active bridge and chess club that operates out of the Card Room. In Men in Black: International (2019), Agent H (Chris Hemsworth) finds himself in a high-stakes card game with some unsavoury extra-terrestrials. If golf is more your bag, there are clubs for those too; just don’t go asking for a snooker room, as it’s strictly billiards only here. In the book-lined Smoking Room, there’s a secret door hidden in the bookcase that a waiter will emerge from when delivering drinks, and small lockers are a throwback to where members would store their cigars. The Committee Room continues to be the place ‘where decisions affecting the Club’s affairs have been made since 1841’.

Today, the Reform Club has around 2,900 members. There are 46 bedrooms upstairs for any members and their guests requiring a lengthier stay (Henry James lived at the Club in his final years). Any non-members wanting to peer inside can do so either via the Club’s charitable arm, which offers pre-booked tours to private groups, or via London’s Open House Festival, which runs in September. So if you do want to snoop around it yourself, you don’t have to join the secret service just yet…