I live in Mayfair these days. I wander through expensive streets, past costly boutiques, exclusive restaurants, and grand houses where chandeliers glitter behind the windows. I walk past private members’ clubs, through elegant squares and along hidden mews. There are embassies, temples, schools and churches; casinos, cinemas, bookshops, tiny cafes and pubs thronging with white-collar workers. It’s elegantly Georgian here, but there’s also plenty of that red-brick ebullient Dutch – and French – inspired architecture of the monied Edwardians. That’s what my house is like – flamboyant, with curlicues on the crimson brick, ornate windows and original Regency railings. It boasts a beautiful library and a drawing room with graceful bay window that looks east towards Bond Street.
Except this is not actually my house at all. And I only live here when I’m in London. Here, at 2 Audley Square, is the University Women’s Club, a venerable institution that you’ve probably never heard of, though you may be aware of some of its past members: leading academics such as founder Gertrude Jackson and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson; writers such as Vera Brittain and Rosamund Lehmann; and many other female pioneers in medicine, science, the arts, and women’s rights and education.
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