Page 47 - An account of the Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235. 1777 to 2012UGLE

Lodge of the Nine Muses 47

A long discussion took place with reference to ... the change of place for
meetings of the Lodge, and it appearing that Bro Robinson [W.M. 1875] had
applied at almost every Hotel likely to suit but had not found any so desirable as
Long’s Hotel it was ... carried nem: con: that the Lodge of Nine Muses be moved
from the Queen’s Hotel Cork Street to Long’s Hotel Bond Street.

Long’s Hotel stood at the corner of New Bond Street and Clifford Street,
nearly opposite the site of the Clarendon; the upper part of the building remains,
but the ground story is masked by Messrs Boot’s somewhat exotic facade.
The Queen’s Hotel vanished a few years ago, to be replaced by one of
the rectangular human packing-cases with which Londoners are becoming
familiarised.
At Long’s Hotel the Lodge remained for four years, when restlessness once
more set in. Apparently it was again the dinners which were at fault, for on 10
December 1878, the “W.M. entered into an explanation with reference to the
transfer of the Banquet on this evening to Willis’s Rooms, (wh was done)”, and
an emergency meeting was held on 18 December, when it was proposed

That the meetings of this Lodge, and the banquets in connection therewith be
held at Willis Rooms, King Street, St James’s.
Bro Horne Payne, S. W. spoke in favor of the motion, and remarked that the
brethren who banquetted at Willis Rooms on the 10th Inst: after the last Lodge
meeting, were unanimous in their approval of the banquet and its arrangements.

On 11 February 1879, the first meeting at Willis’s Rooms took place, and
there the Lodge remained till November 1889, when the Rooms changed
hands and ceased to provide dinners, and the Lodge found itself once more in
the street. Willis’s Rooms were in King Street, St James’s, opposite Christy’s,
and close to the old St James’s Theatre (which some of us remember). Edward
19
Walford’s London Old and New calls them “a noble suite of assembly-rooms,
formerly known as Almack’s”. Almack’s in its palmy days was the centre of
London’s most exclusive set; exclusion from the famous assemblies meant
damnation to the social debutante.

19 Though not now in 2007.