Evans's, late Joy's
The building is still to be seen. It has become some sort of an office block, a visit to Covent Garden will afford a view of the place in its pink paintwork facing Covent Garden Market, in King Street with its plaque noting it was once the residence of the Earl of Orford, who, as Admiral Russell, defeated the French Fleet, under Tourville, near La Hogue in 1692.
Built in Charles II's reign, when Covent Garden was the smart district of town, and Sir Kenelm Digby lived there. Earl of Orford had it reconstructed as did Lord Archer some time later.
In 1773 David Lowe opened it as a family hotel, the first of its kind in London and by
1790 Mrs. Hodson was proprietress who advertised "Stabling for a hundred noblemen and horses." From Mrs. Hodson it passed to a Mr. Richardson and then to Mr. Joy,
As Joy's Hotel it became an informal club patronised by the nobility, gentry, and the gentlemen who did not want the hectic evenings of wine and cards at the big Clubs but as fashion changed the business failed: The upper part was split up into residential chambers and the basement was taken over by W.C. Evans, a man who sang in the chorus of Covent Garden Theatre.
He targeted a market of the gentlemen of the times out for fun, frolic and salacious entertainment. His room was an attractive place where the doors opened at midnight; the food and drink were of excellent quality and expensive. There were a small staff of regular entertainers who were encouraged to be as "blue" and erotic as possible, with the balance of the show provided by the customers parading the rudest song or story of their repertoires.
In 1844, control passed to John Greenmore, known as Paddy Green, one of Evans singers and previously a singer at Covent Garden and the Adelphi Theatres. He decided on great changes in style and entertainment and had the hall entirely reconstructed.
The old supper room was made into a kind of vestibule or lounge cafe and the new building extended beyond it. He also built over a garden with a cottage said to have been the residence of the Kembles (a well known threatrical family) and the birthplace of Fanny Kemble.
The new hall was about seventy-two feet long, which with the old supper room, now the vestibule, gave an overall length of one hundred and thirteen feet, crowded with tables, for the service of food and drink. It had a carved and richly decorated ceiling and a row of substantial columns with ornamental capitals ran along each side. The columns supported massive arches and a screened gallery along two sides and the end of the hall.
All around the walls hung good pictures of theatrical celebrities and at one end there was a platform for the performers, this being the first song and supper room to introduce this feature. All at a total cost was £5,000.
The place was essentially masculine, with ladies were admitted on sufferance to the gallery to watch from behind a screen, after the formality of stating their name and addresses. They were not admitted to the floor of the hall.
The performers were all male, with a very good male voice choir, including some boys. They sang glees and madrigals, popular items at the time.
There was a piano accompaniment for the performers and a harmonium to give it weight.
Performances began at eight to an almost empty hall. About ten o'clock it would begin to get busy and by midnight it would be packed with men, eating chops, steaks and other solid foods, devilled bones and kidneys, drinking beer, stout, wines and brandy.
They represented all the Bohemia of the day, for Bohemia had a big colony in London in the very early Victorian days which were not a bit the stuffy, puritanical times people of to-day believe them to be. The 'forties were much naughtier than the 'nineties ever dreamed of being. All artistic and social London, on the male side, went to Evans's: literary, artistic, legal, sporting, theatrical, commercial men and just plain men-about-town, who all did themselves very well there.
Paddy Green ran the place on a personal basis as was the mode: He walked the floor and talked to the customers. In character, a kindly, benevolent looking old gentleman, with a finely coloured rubicund face, his snuff box always in his hand, offering it to favoured customers. He was very popular with them all. He knew the value of the personal touch and nobody wanted to be at odds with him, for to be barred from Evans's was not only to lose caste but much fun also.
No bills were ever presented, a very ancient looking waiter called Skinner would stand in the doorway and as the customers passed out they told him what they had consumed. He reckoned it up in his head and the reckoning, or misreckoning, was paid without argument. It was the custom if you did not like it, you need not come again. Very few stayed away.
After Paddy Green it was taken over by a Mr. Barnes. He admitted ladies to the floor of the hall and permitted dancing with the result that "The company got extremely mixed and exceedingly disreputable and the place lost its licence."
It became a Social Club then became famous (again) as the headquarters of The National Sporting Club. In the 1950's it was used as a vegetable warehouse but still retaining its air of dignity. Condensed from The Melodies Linger On by W Maqueen-Pope