I was chatting to a friend recently about a gay bar in London that we used to go to when I first moved for University. Then to a work colleague when I was on a work trip to London about how the office block used to be Turnmills and I used to go to a club called Trade there back in the day. Also a milestone birthday is just around the corner so that makes you reminisce a little too. Anyway I think I discovered a problem with Google and that is that it’s not great at recent history unless someone has taken the time to write that history down. So here is a (not complete) list of the bars and clubs I remember from when I first moved to London.
1989 to 1993: the University years
I was new to the city and I did a lot of exploring in those 2.5 years. (0.5 was in NL on an Erasmus exchange and 1 was a work year.) Earl’s Court was the gay centre back then with Hammersmith a close-by companion, and Soho hadn’t yet made its mark as the place to meet and wouldn’t until later in the 90s.
I think the very first bar in London I went to was The Royal Oak in Hammersmith. It’s now a strip club and very straight. Back in the late 80s it was a boisterous bar with drag. Lola Lasagne was on stage the first time I was there, and I met a man called Chris while there with some university friends. That’s when I first discovered how big London was, and how hard it was to traverse at night without a lot of money for taxis.
West
- The Royal Oak, 62 Glenthorne Road, Hammersmith (closed)
- The Coleherne, 261 Earls Court Road, Earl’s Court (closed 2008, became The Pembroke)
- Bromptons, 294 Earls Court Road, Earl’s Court (closed)
- Silks, Shepherd’s Bush Shopping Precinct (closed)
North
- The Black Cap, 171 Camden High Street, Camden Town (closed 2015)
- King Edward VI, 25 Bromfield Street, Islington (closed 2011)
East
- Benjy’s, Mile End Road, Mile End (closed)
- Trade @ Turnmills, Clerkenwell Road, Clerkenwell (Turnmills closed 2008)
South
- Daisy Chain @ The Fridge, Brixton (The Fridge closed 2010, now Electric Brixton)
Central
- Some bar on Bear Street, Leicester Square, which is now Zoo I think, but I can’t remember the name
- Subway (I think that’s what it was called), Leicester Square (closed)
- Jonathan’s (I think that’s what it was called), Leicester Square (closed)
- First Out, 52 St Giles High Street (closed 2011)
- Vespa 15, St Giles High Street (closed)
- Admiral Duncan, 54 Old Compton Street, Soho
- The King’s Arms, 23 Poland Street, Soho (closed)
- City of Quebec, 12 Old Quebec Street, Marble Arch (now straight?)
- Comptons, 53 Old Compton Street, Soho
- Madame JoJo’s, 8-10 Brewer Street, Soho (closed 2014)
- Bang!, 157 Charing Cross Road (I think, but it might have already been at Busby’s)
- Heaven, Villiers Street (now G-A-Y). I worked here too during this period
- Substation, Falconberg Court, Soho (closed). I think it was open in this period but it could have been later
- Village. I think it was somewhere else before it ended up on Wardour Street, Soho
Bars I discovered after University
- The Edge, 11 Soho Square, Soho (closed). This opened I think as I was working at La Rues in 1993
- G-A-Y, Astoria Theatre, 157 Charing Cross Road (the Astoria was demolished in 2009)
Bars I didn’t discover until much later
These came while I was living briefly in Mudchute, the only time I lived on the DLR.
- The Joiners Arms, 116-118 Hackney Road, Bethnal Green (closed 2015)
- The Spiral Staircase? Shoreditch
- The White Swan, 556 Commercial Road, Limehouse
And one that is still open
The Two Brewers on Clapham High Street. It was already a regular by the end of 2000, and it turns up all through the archive of this blog from then on. On 28 January 2007 I met my husband there.
After a list this full of closures, that one being still open feels like the exception that earned its place.
If you remember one I’ve missed, or you know I’ve got a name or an address wrong, the comments are open. That is rather the point of writing it down.
