Timeline of London Bars and Clubs
Contents
1800s
1889 19 Cleveland Street (of the Cleveland Street affair)
1900s
1905 Criterion
1910s
1920s
1927 The Adelphi Rooms
Other clubs and pubs popular with homosexuals at the time were the Sphinx and Music Box, 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.
1930s
Cosmopolitan Wardour Street
1934 The Caravan Endell Street
1935 Billie's Club Little Denmark Street
1935 Festival Dean Street
1935 Careless Stork Denman Street
1937 Music Box Leicester Place
1937 Sphinx Gerrard Street
1939 Boeuf sur Le Toit Orange Street
1940s
1941 Arts and Battledress Orange Street
1941 Sam's Café Rupert Street
1941 Swiss Hotel Old Compton Street
1941 The Crown and Two Chairmen Dean Street
1950s
1951 White Horse Rupert Street
1952 A&B (previously Arts and Battledress in Orange Street) Rupert Street
Rockingham Archer Street
Spartan Tachbrook Street
Bennett's Festival Brydges Street