THE COVENTRY, ERECTHEUM AND PARTHENON CLUBS
The Coventry, or Ambassadors' Club was instituted about twelve years since, at No. 106, Piccadilly, facing the Green Park. The handsome stone-fronted mansion occupies the site of the old Greyhound inn, and was bought by the Earl of Coventry of Sir Hugh Hunlock, in 1764, for £10,000, subject to the ground-rent of £75 per annum. The Club enjoyed but a brief existence: it was closed in March, 1854.
The Erectheum Club, St. James's-square, corner of York-street, was established by Sir John Dean Paul, Bart., and became celebrated for its good dinners. The Club-house was formerly the town depôt of Wedgwood's famous "ware;" and occupies the site of the mansion built for the Earl of Romney, the handsome Sydney of De Grammont's Memoirs.
The Parthenon Club-house (late Mr. Edwards's), east side of Regent-street, nearly facing St. Philip's Chapel, was designed by Nash: the first floor is elegant Corinthian. The south division was built by Mr. Nash for his own residence; it has a long gallery, decorated from a loggia of the Vatican at Rome: it is now the Gallery of Illustration.
"The Coventry Club was a Club of most exclusive exquisites, and was rich in diplomacy; but it blew up in admired confusion. Even so did Lord Cardigan's Club, founded upon the site of Crockford's. The Clarence, the Albion, and a dozen other small Clubs have all dissolved, some of them with great loss to the members, and the Erectheum and Parthenon thought it prudent to join their forces to keep the wolf from the door."—New Quarterly Review.
John Timbs
Club Life of London Vol. I
London, 1866