Annabel's is a private members' club at 46 Berkeley Square in Mayfair, London.
It was opened at 44 Berkeley Square in 1963 by Mark Birley and named for his wife Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart. It was founded in the basement of the Clermont Club, a private gambling club established by John Aspinall. Annabel's was one of the first nightclubs in London and was especially popular with the British aristocracy and the international jet-set in the 1960s and 1970s. It was revived by Birley's son and daughter in the 2000s and was sold by Birley with his other members' clubs to Richard Caring in 2007. Annabel's closed at No. 44 Berkeley Square in 2018 and was reopened later that year at No. 46, occupying the entirety of the Georgian townhouse.
1963–2007: The Birley Years at 44 Berkeley Square
In 1962 the Clermont Club, a private gambling club catering to London's high society, was established at 44 Berkeley Square, a townhouse in the Mayfair district of London, in 1962 by John Aspinall. The house was built between 1742 and 1744 by William Kent for Lady Isabella Finch. The Clermont Club was one of the first private gambling clubs in London following the passing of the Betting and Gaming Act 1960.
Aspinall suggested to his friend Mark Birley that he start a piano bar in the extensive vaults and basement of No. 44. Birley himself had intended to start a club after being inspired by the piano bar of the Carlyle Hotel in New York. 6,000 tonnes of London Clay were removed from the basement and garden at the rear of the house to create the principal rooms of the club. The dance floor of the club was the floor from the old kitchen of No. 44. Annabel's was linked to the Clermont Club upstairs by an internal staircase, which was subsequently blocked off by Birley. Birley blocked off the staircase due to his disapproval of Arab gamblers coming down into Annabel's from the Clermont Club in various states of "dress and disorder which jarred with the tone of the nighclub" as recalled by Jonathan Aitken.
Birley named the club for his wife, Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart. After almost two years of preparations, the club opened on 4 June 1963, Birley having borrowed £175,000 (equivalent to £3,196,389 in 2025) to establish the club. Lady Annabel herself said that she was not fond of having the club named after her when it first opened but subsequently looks back " ... on [Birley's] decision with pride and consider it the most tremendous compliment he could ever have paid me. Having a nightclub named after you is much better than being immortalised as a rose, which, unlike Annabel's, does not necessarily survive very long". The club became colloquially known by rich debutants as "the 'Bel's".
Annabel's was launched by an opening night party on 4 June 1963. Annabel's had a seating capacity of only 225 people and became quickly overcrowded with Mark and Annabel Birley's friends and their relations. Lady Annabel later wrote that for " ... at least an hour it was bedlam. I had visions of oxygen masks and people being trampled to death" but " ... by the early hours of the morning the crowd miraculously began to melt away, and the rest of the night was magical". Annabel also accidentally insulted the American ambassador to the United Kingdom, David Bruce, and the actor Peter O'Toole by telling them there was no room for them. Lady Annabel recalled that the guests on opening night " ... sounded like a roll call for the pillars of society". By 5am only Mark and Annabel Birley and James Goldsmith and his girlfriend Sally Crichton Stuart remained on the dancefloor.
Rival high society clubs to Annabel's in the 1960s included Siegi's and Les Ambassadeurs.
Unaccompanied journalists were not allowed in Annabel's except for the gossip columnist Nigel Dempster.
The entrance to the club was through a canopied staircase leading down from Berkeley Square. The canopy was decorated in blue and gold stripes. The staircase led to the lobby of the club, off which were the men's and women's toilets. The men's toilets had a stock ticker machine. The women's toilets were staffed by Mabel James for many decades.
The décor of Annabel's was designed by Birley and Philip Jebb, with subsequent assistance from Nina Campbell. It was described by Harry Mount as having had a "cluttered, eclectic country house look". Plum Sykes described how "Birley's collection of horse and dog paintings and prints covered the walls top to toe; flickering candle lamps lit the tables while guests ate dinner seated on banquettes upholstered in red velvet; the cramped dance floor, almost an afterthought, was hidden at the back of the club and boasted only a couple of disco lights ... Guests felt more like they were at a party in someone's fabulous drawing room than in a London nightclub". Campbell had met Birley in 1965 when she was an assistant to John Fowler, who had decorated the interiors of the Clermont Club. Campbell told Birley that two vitrine units in the bar looked "too tacky" to which Birley responded "'If you think you're so clever, why don't you do them yourself?". Campbell subsequently lined them with a Chinese red silk and put examples of blue and red Imari porcelain on display. Birley was impressed and Campbell began collaborating with him on the decor of the club.
The main sitting area of the club was down the corridor from the lobby with banquettes and sofas. A bar and the room known as the Buddha Room were subsequently created after the entry corridor became too crowded. The Buddha Room was dominated by a wooden Indian sculpture of the Buddha, bought by Birley from Barling of Mount Street. It was painted with a red lacquer and decorated with watercolours and paintings of the Ballets Russes by Pavel Tchelitchew. A private dining room was to the right, established in 1970 from the former mews building of No. 44. The walls of the private dining room were filled from floor to ceiling with wine bottles. The main dining room of the club lay beyond the entrance hallway with the dance floor at its back. The dining room was distinguished by its vaulted ceiling and numerous tables with red and green velvet chairs, each table set with lamps and Limoges china with a flower-pattern. The dining room had a large bar to one side. The supporting pillars of the basement were covered with an antique brass which caused atmospheric reflections contributing to the intimate ambience of the club. Each room had a log fire.
Lady Annabel wrote that Annabel's felt more like a set of "luxurious private sitting rooms than a club". It was decorated with numerous and valuable oil paintings, drawings and photographs with many vases of flowers. The artworks were by many notable artists including Léon Bakst, H. M. Bateman, Edwin Landseer and Alfred Munnings. Some of the artworks in the club had been inherited by Birley from his father, the society portrait artist Oswald Birley. A painting by John Ward of founder members of the club was commissioned to mark the 20th anniversary Annabel's and hung in the dining room of the club.
Following the success of Annabel's, Birley opened the private members' clubs Mark's Club in 1972, Harry's Bar, in 1979, the Bath & Racquets Club in 1989, and George in 2001.
Birley placed sandbags outside the club as a precaution against terrorist attacks following the IRA's bombing of Scott's in nearby Mount Street in 1975.
A set of linocuts of scenes from Annabel's by the cartoonist Nicholas Garland was privately published by Birley in 1985, with a foreword by Lucian Freud.
Sarah Ferguson and Diana, Princess of Wales went to Annabel's disguised as police officers a few days before Ferguson's wedding to Prince Andrew in July 1986. The social commentator Peter York said that someone once described Annabel's as being where the "middle-aged meets the Middle East" and that it had represented the "high point of aspiration" in the 1980s but that it was unsustainiable if it only catered to Sloane Rangers.
In the wake of the collapse of Lloyd's of London, Birley banned members from paying on credit. The club was seen as stuffy and old fashioned by the late 1990s with its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s. After suffering a decline in his health and mobility, Birley brought his two children, Robin and India Jane Birley, into the management of the club for the first time. The siblings co-managed Annabel's in the years before Birley's death in 2007. Robin ran the company and India Jane, responsible for the look and decoration of the club, redesigned and relaunched Annabel's with Robin in 2003. Their changes led to the arrival of a younger crowd to the club and the revival of its popularity. Annabel's marked its 40th anniversary in 2003 with two dinners attended by 125 founder members among 320 guests hosted by Mark Birley and Lady Annabel Goldsmith. Barry Humphries wrote and performed a special song about Annabel's on both nights in character as Dame Edna Everage. Queen Elizabeth II visited the club in 2003 for a dinner to celebrate the 70th birthday of one of her Ladies of the Bedchamber, Virginia Ogilvy, Countess of Airlie. It was the first time that the Queen had been in a nightclub since she was married. The Queen drank a gin martini (without lemon). Belinda Harley's book about Annabel's was published in 2006.