SPORTING CLUB'S HOME WILL BE REPLACED BY THEATRE BUILDING.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18937, 6 December 1929, Page 3

SPORTING CLUB'S HOME WILL BE REPLACED BY THEATRE BUILDING.

(Special to the “ Star.”) LONDON, OctoT>er 24. The National Sporting Club which for so many years has been the supreme authority in all matters relating to boxing, is now without a home, and is staging its contests at the Stadium Club, in Holborn. he N.S.C. has sold the fine old seventeenth century house in King Street, Covent Garden, which has been the headquarters of the noble art. and is searching for new premises Since the National Sporting Club entered on the tenancy of 43. King Street, few alterations have been made—excepting m that part of the building where box ing contests are held—and the exter- •° r he house remains as it appeared in 18th century prints. The house was built about 1627, and its most famous occupant vas the’Earl ot Orford, who is said to have held there the first Cabinet meeting ever convened. In the 18th century the house became an hotel. Supper rooms and a music hall followed, and the music-hall developed into a place where prize-fights were held. A notable feature of the house i* a fine staircase of carved oak made from the timber of a man-o -war of Nelson’s dav There is a mantelpiece carved by Grinling Gibbons in one of the spacious first floor rooms, i.nd the to 7 part of the house—in which are the servants’ sleeping quarters— pre-'~rts a curious example of a reproduction of a street in “Old London ” Over the doors of the rooms are painted such names as “Dr Caius,” “Bardolph the Grocer,” and so on, and the “Pig and Whistle” Inn, a post house and stables with an ostler’s bell outside, -also fig ures in the unusual decorative scheme of wall painting. The site is to be taken up by a theatre building.