Sphinx

The Sphinx in Gerard Street, Soho,was a gay club opened by Muriel Belcher and Dolly Mayers in 1937. The opened The Music Box later hat year in Leicester Place.

Other clubs and pubs popular with homosexuals at the time were the Caravan, York Minster, Festival, Careless Stork, Boeuf sur Le Toit in Orange Street, the Arts and Battledress (also in Orange Street) 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 Billie's Club, the Hungry Horse, White 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), the Trocadero Long Bar, the Criterion and Lyon's Corner Houses, Spartan in Tachbrook Street and Bennet's Festival.