Athenaeum Club, London

It is primarily a club for men and women with intellectual interests, and particularly (but not exclusively) for those who have attained some distinction in science, engineering, literature or the arts.

Decimus was described by architectural scholar Guy Williams as "the designer and prime member of the Athenaeum, one of London's grandest gentlemens' [sic] clubs".

The Athenaeum was founded in 1824 at the instigation of John Wilson Croker, then Secretary to the Admiralty, who was largely responsible for the organisation and early development of the club.

In 1823, Croker wrote to Sir Humphry Davy, I will take the opportunity of repeating the proposition I have made to you about a club for literary and scientific men and followers of the fine arts.

The fashionable and military clubs... have spoiled all the coffee houses and taverns so that the artist, or mere literary man... are in a much worse position.

Burton's clubhouse is in the Neoclassical style, with a Doric portico with paired columns, and has been described by architectural scholar Guy Williams as "a building of remarkable grace and astonishing novelty" with a central staircase that is "distinctly Egyptian in flavour".

[4] When the clubhouse was completed in April 1830, the members of the club committee stated, [They] are bound to express their entire satisfaction at the manner in which the work has been carried out by Mr. Burton.

They can testify, and indeed the foregoing Accounts evince, the general accuracy of his estimates and they trust that the club at large, as well as the public, must be satisfied of his professional skill, and the beauty of his architectural designs.

There is a continuous balustrade on the first floor, with an outstanding but costly frieze, designed by Decimus Burton and executed by John Henning, a leading sculptor of the day, which is a copy of the marbles from the Parthenon in Athens ("The Elgin Marbles", now in the British Museum), depicting the Panathenaic procession, copied from the Parthenon.

The statue of Pallas Athene by Edward Hodges Baily, which stands above the porch, was installed in the same year (the spear was added later).

The cast of the Apollo Belvedere positioned in the recess at the top of the principal staircase at the Athenaeum was a gift to the club from Decimus Burton.

The Duke of Wellington was a founding member of the club and the stone installed at his request to assist him in mounting his horse can still be seen on the pavement outside the front porch.

The first librarian of the Athenaeum was Spencer Hall, appointed in 1833 on the recommendation of his relative Edward Magrath, who succeeded Michael Faraday as first secretary of the club.

[9] The 3rd principal storey was added to the building in 1898 after more than one earlier proposal had been rejected, largely because the members were not prepared to accept an increase in the subscription.

The Crown refused consent for a new building above the ground, and so a new ladies annexe was constructed under the garden, incorporating the former billiards room.

[14] As related in the memoirs of David Ben Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister, on 18 May 1937 he met at the Athenaeum Club with St John Philby, a British official who had converted to Islam and was serving as a senior adviser to King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia.

For several hours, Ben Gurion and Philby held informal talks there on a draft treaty between the Zionist movement and an Arab Federation headed by Ibn Saud.

The cast of the Apollo Belvedere positioned in the recess at the top of the principal staircase at the Athenaeum was a gift to the club from Decimus.