The Oriental Club was founded in 1824 by Sir John Malcolm with the Duke of Wellington as Honorary President and members drawn from the East India Company and officials in public service in India. Strong Oriental connections are still the binding force among Club Members who are active in industry, commerce, the Civil Service and the professions. The first home of the Oriental Club was in Grosvenor Street only a few hundred metres South of Stratford Place. It leased its first rooms, in the heart of Mayfair at the rate of £1,200 for a year or £2,300 for two. It remained there for four years before moving to a suitable house in Hanover Square, which was demolished and replaced by a purpose-built clubhouse.

Stratford House the Club’s home since 1962, was the centre piece of a Robert Adam inspired design and was built by Edward Stratford, later the second Earl of Aldborough between 1770 and 1776. Edward Stratford paid £4,000 for the site (formerly occupied by the Lord Mayor of London's Banqueting House built in 1565 in what was then described as 'Conduit Meads' this side of Tyburn) and the building of Stratford House.

The house remained very much as it was built until 1894. In that year, the then owner Mr Murray Guthrie installed new plumbing throughout and strengthened the underpinning to take the weight of a second storey which he had built to both east and west wings. This was the first alteration to the external appearance. Although it has been said that "it did not improve the artistic symmetry of the original building”. The next owner, Sir Edward (later Baron) Colebrook, in 1903 undertook a notable reconstruction, to a 'complete Adam design', of the library.

In 1908 Lord Derby bought the lease and almost immediately set in motion further and more extensive alterations. Guthrie's extended colonnade in front was removed and yet another storey added to the wings, resulting in the facade you see today. He also removed the bifurcated staircase and replaced it with a single one. Fine as it is, something of the grace of the original was lost.

Lord Derby also purchased additional property in Marylebone Lane, removed the stables and built there a Banqueting Hall and above it a grand ballroom (the last privately owned ballroom to be built in this country) in the Italian design. It was a spectacular, if slightly garish room. This room was destined to be converted to two floors of bedrooms - an essential as far as a Gentlemen's Club is concerned.

Stratford House has had many names in its day. Very early it became Aldborough House, later Stratford House again, then St Albans House yet again Stratford House and much later Derby House. Finally Stratford House again but it was, has been, and will always be No. 11 Stratford Place. The name changes were transitory - the builder’s changes were not. Although it can be said the house has lost some of its grace and balance of the original, its dignity remains unimpaired. It is, as it always has been, a house to be lived in, not a cold museum.

In 1959/60 the house was purchased by the Oriental Club, which had previously been housed in Hanover Square. It was necessary to make certain alterations, as the needs of a Gentlemen's Club were different to those of a Town House of the aristocracy. Thus the ballroom was converted into two floors of bedrooms, additional lifts, both passenger and service, were installed and probably most drastic of all, alterations to the Banqueting Hall were made. After all, the Club had need for a Dining Room and thus a 'cashier facility' was required. Similarly, space was needed for the installation of a passenger lift servicing the ground, first and mezzanine floors.

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