Remembering London’s Queer Nights: Freedom and Love in the Archives
Jeroen van Dijk
Laser hands in the air. Credit: Gadgee Fadgee.
For many of us, queer nightclubs have inspired freedom and individual expression. We come together to celebrate, mourn and forget in these havens of acceptance and equality. The decline of these night-time venues over the past decade has prompted much debate. While some iconic venues, such as the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, are currently surviving, many clubs have seen their limelights turning off over the past 20 years, including Bromptons, Dukes, The Joiner’s Arms and Turnmills (to name just a few). From 2006 to 2017, the number of LGBTQ+ clubs, bars and performance spaces in London has dropped by more than 50 per cent. Many venues face even bleaker prospects during the pandemic: this week saw rumours of the permanent closure of London’s iconic Retro Bar, for example.
Memories of these often legendary night venues don’t just disappear into thin air. Pictures, signs and other ephemera end up in archives, like that of Bishopsgate Institute, which holds archival material for many of these closed nightclubs, as well as photographic collections and items of clothing worn by queer people on their nights out. LGBTQ+ stories are interlinked with social movements in London, and Bishopsgate Institute documents the experiences of everyday people, and the extraordinary individuals and organisations who have strived for social, political and cultural change. The Institute holds many archives and collections, ranging from London History, Labour and Socialist History, and its LGBTQ+ archives encompass LGBTQ+ history, politics and culture, with archives from Stonewall, Switchboard, GMFA (The Gay Men's Health Charity) and Outrage!, and material relating to the Terrence Higgins Trust, as well as to Achilles Heel and QX magazines. It is also the custodian of the Lesbian and Gay Newsmedia Archive (LAGNA), which includes over 300,000 press cuttings from the straight press regarding LGBTQ+ history from the 1890s to today, plus the UK Leather and Fetish Archives.
Print depicting The Cave of the Golden Calf. Credit: Daily Mirror (4 July 1912).
Spaces for queer people to come together, love and have sex have always been around, but the first documented spaces for queer interaction in London, especially of gay men, are the 18th-century Molly Houses. Generally functioning as taverns, public houses or even private clubs, these places were a popular way for gay men to meet in times of legal and social persecution. It came as a given that these places were often raided, and records from the Old Bailey reveal frequent instances of gay men being blackmailed for money. Perhaps the most famous Molly House was that of Mother Clap, situated in Field Lane, Holborn, which was one of the most infamous rookeries on the Fleet River. The venue only lasted a couple of years, but became notorious after Mother Clap’s trial at the Old Bailey. She was arrested for keeping a Molly House, and three of her customers were hanged at Tyburn.
Same-sex activity between men remained a capital offence until 1861. At the start of the 20th century, more specifically LGBTQ+ venues began opening, although they were often subject to harassment by legal authorities. The Cave of the Golden Calf, which opened in 1912, is considered to be the first gay nightclub. Situated near Regent Street, it was often visited by the wealthy upper-classes and bohemian artists. This avant-garde venue could have provided a solid model for future nightclubs in the city, with its combinations of artistic endeavours and comedic performances. Another famous example is the Gateways Club just off King’s Road, which was open from 1931 until 1985. This noted lesbian nightclub, run by the well-known Gina and Ted Ware, was one of the few places in the UK where lesbians could openly meet in the 20th century. The Wares turned the venue into a women-only member’s club, creating a safe space for lesbian women to meet. In the second half of the 20th century, it was often the scene of political debates on feminism and gay rights. The club closed in 1985 due to increasing competition from other (queer) night-time venues around King’s Road and elsewhere in Chelsea.
Besides such illegal clubs, many people met and socialised through irregular events and underground meeting places. These varied from clubs such as the Union Jack Club in Waterloo for members and veterans of the British Armed Services, which gained a reputation as a refuge where homosexual servicemen could socialise during and after World War II; to cruising grounds such as Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, Hampstead Heath and Clapham Common; to drag balls such as those of Jean Frederick’s in Porchester Hall; to private homes. After the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967, clubs were now legal, although it was often only white gay men who enjoyed greater acceptance in the going-out scene.
Turnmills, on the corner of Clerkenwell Road and Turnmill Street, now demolished.
Fresher in our memory, and in some cases still active today, the big gay clubs of the 1990s are for many people the prime examples of queer nightlife in our city. Perhaps most notorious was Turnmills, which closed in 2008. This Victorian building on the corner of Clerkenwell Road and Turnmill Street in Clerkenwell was built as a distillery for the Booth’s Dry Gin, then converted into a bar in 1985, and eventually turned into a club in 1990. It was the first club to have a 24-hour dance licence in the UK, and hosted several dance nights, such as the gay club Trade, which was the first legal after-hours club in Britain. Once other clubs had closed at night, Trade provided a safer alternative for men than cruising in parks. After Turnmills’ closure, the building was demolished to make room for a modern office building , completed in 2015.
Interestingly, Turnmills wasn’t in a typical location for a big club in the 1990s. Besides a few other well-known venues, such as the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, by this date the majority of London’s queer nightlife was focussed on Soho. Yet Soho hadn’t been ‘gay central’ in the late 1970s and early 80s, when Earl’s Court and West Brompton were most frequented by the queer public. The Copacabana club, the Colherne pub (a well-known leather bar), the Catacombs and the Lord Ranelagh (famous as Bromptons) were all popular meeting places before Soho became the epicentre of London’s queer scene. Brompton Cemetery was used for ‘Pride picnics’, and is still a well-known cruising ground. The relocation of queer nightlife to Soho owes much to Westminster Council’s controversial ‘cleaning up’ of Soho in the 1980s and 1990s, which saw sex-workers sidelined in favour of establishments that catered to an increasingly accepted clientele of affluent gay men. The relationship between gentrification and queer space is occasionally a complex and contested one.
The LimeLight, Shaftesbury Avenue. Credit: Richard Bryant.
The LimeLight, in a former Welsh Presbyterian Church on Shaftesbury Avenue, was a hotspot in the 1980s, but closed in 2003 to make way for a bar – the building is now being repurposed for an arts organisation. The ROXY in Covent Garden, often frequented by queer avant-gardes, became the birth-place of British punk music, and its owners later established The Fridge in Brixton, which closed in 2010.
Perhaps the most well-known and successful is Heaven, which has managed to remain open to this day. Having opened in the late 1970s in the railway arches underneath Charing Cross station, it became home to avant-garde house events, and is seen as the birthplace of ambient house. Because of its ample space and central location, it soon became the centre for queer nightlife in the capital, taking up an important role in making gay clubs more mainstream. In the 1990s, Heaven had to relaunch itself to rival other popular nightclubs such as Trade and The Fridge. The success of this relaunch pushed Heaven to its current status as one of the most famous gay venues in the country. It is currently owned by G-A-Y, which sprang from a long and successful series of events hosted at the London Astoria from 1976 on.
Many of these historic buildings are still with us, and are now often home to bars and pubs, but often little is left to memorialise the importance and value they had in times of prejudice and persecution. Bishopsgate Institute holds a wide variety of photographs and items from these venues, such as old pictures from Heaven, Trade and The Limelight, as well as other ephemera relating to these venues. For more images of LGBTQ+ nightlife, view the latest gallery from Bishopsgate Institute. You can also find out more in their LGBTQ+ Archives and UK Leather and Fetish Archives.
Jeroen van Dijk is an architectural history and heritage professional, and focuses on LGBTQ+ perspectives in the built environment. He is currently responsible for the marketing and communications at Bishopsgate Institute, and is a member of the SAHGB’s LGBTQIA+ network.