In fact, the club is known to have the longest opening hours in London. The Union Club say on their website they are “the only club in Vauxhall – and possibly London – where you can party every night of the week and well into the following morning.” Related: New London gay club to open in bid to remedy ‘slow decline’ of capital’s LGBTQ+ venues Now more of a multi-disciplinary arts space than plain club, VFD’s window exhibitions promote local artist’s work, alongside visual art galleries and queer events that run late into the night for “sweaty dancing”, says their website. The night that famously began as Vogue Fabrics has transitioned into VFD.
SUNDAY NIGHT GAY BARS LONDON LICENSE
There are a number of offshoot rooms with dance and hip hop DJs, and a 4 am license which is pretty late for such a central London spot. Nearly 2,000 partygoers fit snugly into this subterranean party spot by Embankment station, which has one of the most positive, uplifting and youthful vibes of all London’s gay clubs.Ĭommercial and throwback pop tunes are the order of the day in the cavernous main room, and during the week live bands from the LGBTQ+ scene and further afield gig here too.
Visit Admiral Duncan The Mainstream One: Heaven A friendly and mixed crowd attend weekly drag events. Tragically the site of the only fatal attack against the LGBTQ+ community in the UK, the Admiral Duncan has stood the test of time as a loud and proud Soho establishment.Ī neo-Nazi set off a nail bomb which killed three people and wounded 70 in 1999.Īdmiral Duncan has been trading since the 1830s though and undeterred, carries on being a Soho siren. Visit Sedition The Soho Classic: Admiral Duncan Outside the Admiral Duncan gay bar London scene queen Princess Julia has become a relatively stable resident of the venue’s second room. Still proudly boasting its 6am license, Sedition, which opened in March 2018, hosts eclectic nights of house, disco and techno music. Visit Dalston Superstore The Brand New One: Sedition Sedition, gay bar in Londonįormerly known as East Bloc, Old Street’s shoebox-sized late-night venue has reopened as Sedition. Often a pit stop on the way to larger clubs or club nights, Dalston Superstore gets rammed at peak times at weekends when getting to the bar is its own unique challenge.
Live drag shows are an almost nightly occurrence in the upstairs bar, and on weekends the club downstairs suits dancers keen on partying until 2 or 3 and then getting a (relatively speaking) early night (DS closes at 3am). Following the decriminalisation of homosexuality, it was often only cis, white men that feel into this new category of "acceptability", therefore the spaces that started popping up in 1970s were often illicit bars, with “Shebeens” being illegal bars that were for Afro-Caribbean people, transgender people, and sex workers.Dalston is London’s alternative nightlife district, and the cherry atop its nightlife cake is no doubt Dalston Superstore. Raids meant that queer culture was forced further and further underground. Police were a consistent presence at LGBTQ+ spaces, with homosexuality being illegal until 1967. We delved into Jean Fredericks' legendary Drag Balls in this piece here. These Balls continued even after homosexuality was de-criminalised, and were more explicit about being Drag Balls. This includes events like The Chelsea Arts Ball, which was a costume ball that ran from 1908 – 1958 and celebrated gender and sexual experimentation and expression. Though LGBTQ+ venues did exist while homosexuality was criminalised, they weren’t always advertised as so, but still became a home to the community. The first recognised lesbian bar was the famous Gateways Club on King Road, which opened in 1931. Venues specifically for LGBTQ+ people started to open, with The Cave of the Golden Calf, which was considered the first gay bar, opening in 1912. One of the most famous Molly Houses being Mother Clap’s in Holborn, which ran from 1724 until 1726, when it was raided. These were where gay men would meet one another, with there being mock marriages and births, singing, and sex. Eighteenth century Molly Houses were the first LGBTQ+ spaces that we'd recognise as a "modern" night venue.