This handsome Club-house, which occupies a portion of the site of the old Thatched House Tavern, 74, St. James's-street, was designed by Sydney Smirke and George Basevi, 1845. The upper portion is Corinthian, with columns and pilasters, and a frieze sculptured with the imperial crown and oak-wreaths; the lower order is Roman-Doric; and the wings are slightly advanced, with an enriched entrance-porch north, and a bay-window south. The interior was superbly decorated in colour by Sang: the coved hall, with a gallery round it, and the domed vestibule above it, is a fine specimen of German encaustic embellishment, in the arches, soffites, spandrels, and ceilings; and the hall-floor is tessellated, around a noble star of marqueterie. The evening room, on the first floor, has an enriched coved ceiling, and a beautiful frieze of the rose, shamrock, and thistle, supported by scagliola Corinthian columns: the morning room, beneath, is of the same dimensions, with Ionic pillars. The library, in the upper story north, has columns and pilasters with bronzed capitals. Beneath is the coffee-room. The kitchen is far more spacious than that of the Reform Club. In the right wing is a large bay-window, which was introduced as an essential to the morning room, affording the lounger a view of Pall Mall and St. James's-street, and the Palace gateway; this introduction reminding us, by the way, of Theodore Hook's oddly comparing the bay-window of a coffee-house nearly on the same spot, to an obese old gentleman in a white waistcoat. Hook lived for some time in Cleveland-row: he used to describe the real London as the space between Pall Mall on the south, Piccadilly north, St. James's west, and the Opera-house east.

This is the second Club of the Conservative party, and many of its chiefs are honorary members, but rarely enter it: Sir Robert Peel is said never to have entered this Club-house except to view the interior. Other leaders have, however, availed themselves of the Club influences to recruit their ranks from its working strength. This has been political ground for a century and a half; for here, at the Thatched House Tavern, Swift met his political Clubs, and dined with Tory magnates; but with fewer appliances than in the present day; in Swift's time "the wine being always brought by him that is president."[28]