University Women's Club

Founded in 1886 as a club for university women, the University Women's Club has held 2 Audley Square since its members bought the freehold from the Russell family in 1921. The house is red brick and sandstone, remodelled in 1876 by T.H. Wyatt for Lord Arthur Russell, and much of the Georgian interior beneath it survives. Lady Arthur Russell kept a salon here that drew Gertrude Bell, Vera Brittain and Virginia Woolf, and was remembered afterwards as the focus of some of the best talk London had to offer. The club has kept to that principle since, and the house is still owned by its members.

Three rooms carry the private hire. The Library sits at the top of the central staircase: green panelled walls, antique parquet, crystal chandeliers, bookshelves to the ceiling, a view across Park Lane to Hyde Park and its own small first-floor terrace. Opposite it the Drawing Room is lighter, hung with hand-painted Chinoiserie panels by Lucy Makin, with the original fireplace at one end and a grand piano at the other. The two open into one another for 100 seated or 120 standing. On the ground floor the Dining Room's French windows give straight onto a two-tiered terrace garden, shaded by a London plane and quiet apart from the fountain; together they take 50 at table or 80 for a reception.

The kitchen is in house, every event is dressed in white linen and silverware as standard, and the club's own events team runs the day. Both first-floor rooms are licensed for civil ceremonies, and the club takes bookings from members, their guests and outside organisations alike. Production and editorial crews have worked in the same rooms for decades, for the period detail and the light. Twenty-two bedrooms on the upper floors mean a party can stay the night.