26 Nov 2020
I took the day off my day job to do my accounts—or at least do enough bookkeeping to send them to my accountant. I hate doing the books. I woke up late, tired and with a headache and decided to bunk off for a walk around Cliftonwood, Clifton Village and Clifton instead, taking in a couple of good coffees along the way. Thanks, Foliage Café, and Twelve for the flat whites.
The impressive building on The Mall that now houses the Clifton Club was originally built as a hotel and assembly rooms. I was looking up the history the other day in an attempt to track down the assembly rooms the eponymous heroine visited in Fanny Burney's novel Evelina, but Evelina was published in 1778 and this building wasn't built until 1805, from what I can work out. (It definitely wasn't the Victoria Rooms, either, for fairly obvious resons, given the name!)