TALK OF THE TOWN: The Garrick Club’s in a tizz – over Benedict Cumberbatch and his trainers

The rarefied lounges of London’s exclusive Garrick Club are still reeling from the divisive vote to allow women to join, nearly two centuries after it was founded.

Now a potential new affront to traditionalists is causing a kerfuffle in the Covent Garden establishment, set up in 1831 as a meeting place for ‘men of refinement’.

The club has a strict dress code which stipulates that if a member arrives in trainers or gym shoes, they are denied entry, no matter who they are. How, then, to explain a new portrait of actor Benedict Cumberbatch, which was painted inside the club and shows him wearing the forbidden footwear?

The painting shows the Sherlock star posing alongside fellow actors Damian Lewis and Matthew Macfayden and has taken pride of place in the Garrick’s bar. The largest artwork in the room, it sits alongside portraits of other famous members such as Richard Attenborough.

But Cumberbatch’s footwear has ruffled a few feathers. ‘The Garrick has a strict policy of requiring formal shoes for male members and guests, not trainers,’ my man in the salmon-and-cucumber tie says. ‘It’s caused a stir.’

A new portrait of actor Benedict Cumberbatch, which was painted inside the club, shows him wearing the forbidden footwear

The club has a strict dress code which stipulates that if a member arrives in trainers or gym shoes, they are denied entry, no matter who they are

Benedict chose to wear smart casual black trainers for the portrait, painted in the club’s library, which he has called his favourite room in England.

But etiquette guru Nicky Haslam – whose father, William Heywood Haslam, was chairman of the club – has leapt to Cumberbatch’s defence. ‘I think it’s quite fun to bring it a bit up-to-date,’ he tells me, adding his father wouldn’t have a problem with it either.

‘Well he wasn’t stuffy, my father. He rather liked people breaking out slightly – but he wouldn’t know what trainers are.’

The Garrick, which voted to allow women members in May, wasn’t available for comment, but its website states that ‘no denim, trainers or gym shoes are allowed’.

Forget dating apps – it looks like exclusive members-only website Radio H-P could be the new matchmaking service for monied families to arrange their children’s marriages. 

Among the adverts on the site dubbed the ‘posh Gumtree’, my spies tell me of a post that reads: ‘An Exceptional Daughter Needs an Exceptional Match!’ In it, the mother boasts of her single daughter’s many qualities – including that she is a ‘scuba dive master’- and appeals for a ‘fit and healthy’ person with a ‘similar ethos’ to get in touch. 

Antonia much prefers Rupert’s hunky Rival 

Novelist Lady Antonia Fraser may be 92 but her heart fluttered like a teenager when she watched Aidan Turner as Declan O’Hara in the TV version of Jilly Cooper’s bonkbuster Rivals. 

‘Rupert Campbell-Black [played by Alex Hassell] is not my favourite, he is not the one I would run off with. That would be Aidan Turner,’ she tells me at The Oldie Of The Year Awards lunch. Could it be because Turner bears resemblance to her late husband, the playwright Harold Pinter? ‘Exactly.’ Cheeky… 

Their mothers hosted the hit 90s TV show that women turned to for fashion advice, but today Trinny and Susannah’s daughters are rewriting the rules of What Not To Wear. Their first hot tip? Eschew the eyeliner – if you’re over a certain age.

Trinny Woodall’s daughter Lyla Elichaoff and Susannah Constantine’s daughter Esme Bertelsen

‘I feel like when you’re like 40, and you start to get wrinkles, you don’t wanna wear eyeliner,’ says Trinny Woodall’s daughter Lyla Elichaoff in a video released by Tatler. ‘I think it’ll make your wrinkly eyes look more wrinklier.’

Is a TV spin-off on the cards? Perhaps not – Susannah Constantine’s daughter Esme Bertelsen tells me she’s declined an offer to star in Made In Chelsea. ‘Absolutely not!’ she laughs at the idea.

Windsor is now in the East End

Will Lady Amelia Windsor adopt a Cockney accent now that she’s moved to London’s East End? Amelia, 28, has swapped the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea for trendy Dalston, where she has moved to with her boyfriend, Ollie Lewis. 

The pair, who looked smitten at Glastonbury this summer, left, will count Alexa Chung and Paul Mescal among their neighbours. Perhaps Amelia’s grandfather, the Duke of Kent, will grace the East End with a visit?

For Grace Campbell, the comedian daughter of Tony Blair’s spin doctor turned podcaster Alastair Campbell, health is no laughing matter. 

The 30-year-old says she suffers ‘mad’ hypochondria when looking up symptoms online to diagnose herself. ‘I’ve been convinced that I’ve had so many different illnesses over the years, including prostate cancer,’ she says. ‘My mum had to tell me that wasn’t possible.’ 

From lady to master

How does a US-born chatelaine who feels ‘like an outsider’ set about fitting in with high society? 

By completing a master’s degree in English country house studies, of course. 

Julie Montagu, who is Viscountess Hinchingbrooke after marrying the future Earl of Sandwich, posed with her newly finished dissertation outside her home, Mapperton House in Dorset.

Julie Montagu, who is Viscountess Hinchingbrooke after marrying the future Earl of Sandwich, posed with her newly finished dissertation outside her home, Mapperton House in Dorset

‘I was nervous. I felt intimidated,’ she says of joining the aristocracy 20 years ago. 

‘I was definitely naive about some things. I wanted to take this course to swot up. I’m American, and so my knowledge of the country house, even though I live in one myself and I manage one myself, is limited.’ 

Her Buckingham University paper is on ‘redefining the American heiress, Alberta Sturge’ – an earlier Countess of Sandwich – will become a book.