Whatever happened to the serious business of eating lunch? That was a question I pondered the other day when considering the ups and downs of fortune of that old-style gentlemen's institution called The Clarendon Club.

It is celebrating its 150th birthday this year. Club secretary Mike Lewis told me that it is still flourishing as a social institution for professional and business men (no ladies may join), but it is now based at the North Oxford Golf Club, having abandoned its premises at 121 High Street, Oxford, where members used to gather daily to eat leisurely lunches and discuss local issues that affected them all.

Strange, perhaps, since nowadays we all use technology that was designed to save time, but it seems that most of us now eat lunch on the hoof rather than visit a club (or a pub either, come to that) for a long repast.

Mr Lewis said: “Dwindling membership coupled with increasing rent, the cost of a steward, parking restrictions and a shift of professional businesses from the city centre to the outskirts resulted in the abandonment of the premises in 1999.”

He added: “People don’t seem to eat lunch the way they used to.”

The club started life in 1863 at the Golden Cross Hotel in Cornmarket, that venerable hostelry that dates back to the 12th century and was described in early records as in foro, or in the market place.

Its first president was Alderman Spiers, owner of the Mitre Hotel. It then moved to the old Clarendon Hotel (demolished in 1954) before acquiring its own premises at 54 Cornmarket in 1881. It moved to 121 High Street in 1967.

The list of past presidents (on the back of the menu card used at the anniversary dinner held earlier this year) reads like a who’s who of the bosses of Oxford's old established businesses.

There are members of the Knowles family, of the building company started in 1797, of the Venables family, owners of gentlemen's outfitters Shepherd & Woodward, of estate agents Brooks, and of the grocery and tea family Twining.

Here’s wishing it well for the next 150 years, even without two-hour lunches.