Trocadero Long Bar

Tocodero's Long Bar was a magnificent bar opened by Lyons in 1896 on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and Piccadilly Circus. It was popular with gay men. M. Joseph said:

the most famous bar in London... It was all marble with pillars supporting arches down each side and it had a kind of mosaic roof. The bar ran the entire length and there were plenty of tables.

Robert Hutton said: Sunday morning at the Trocadero Long Bar... Was a recognized gathering place... one heard news of friends, swapped experiences of the previous evening and usually ended up in a luncheon party, going on afterwards to pass a lazy afternoon at Alex's hotel in Coventry Garden.

James Agate, the theatre critic, frequented this exclusive and expensive gentlemen-only bar.

Other clubs and pubs popular with homosexuals at the time were the York Minster, the Swiss and the Marquis of Granby in Soho. Peter Wildeblood called them "less [than] discreet", rough and cruisy. Throughout the 1930s respectable men in evening dress and camp queans solicited sailors and workmen in the Running Horse. Other venues included the Billi's Club, the Hungry Horse, Gerano's in New Compton Street, Chez Victor in Wardour Street. The downstairs bar at the Ritz Hotel was frequented by men from high society, nicknamed l’Abri (the shelter).

References

Queer London – Perils and Pleasures in the Sexual Metropolis, 1918-1957 Matt Houlbrook, The University of Chicago Press, 2005.