Turnmills
+Index
Clerkenwell 101
36 Gay club, 1990s’ style. Turnmills was a famous club on the corner of Turnmill Street. ‘Trade’ was a ground-breaking gay night that started in 1990. It would open on Sunday at 4am and the partying would continue until 1pm on Sunday afternoon, and was the first UK night (and venue) to obtain a 24-hour music and dance licence. It soon became hugely popular attracting the likes of Madonna and Grace Jones. Turnmills had other legendary nights and was instrumental in building the reputations of DJs such as The Chemical Brothers and Paul Oakenfold. Described by Musik magazine as “a cool venue full of twists, turns and little hideaways to indulge in a bit of the other” and by London historian, Peter Ackroyd, as “an inheritor of Clerkenwell’s historic reputation for disrespectful nightlife” and more broadly as “the harbour for the outcast and those who wished to go beyond the law”.
Turnmills - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Turnmills - Wikipedia • en.wikipedia.org
35 Gay club, 1725 style. Margaret Clap (better known as ‘Mother Clap’) ran a coffee house in Field Lane, near today’s Saffron Hill. Requiring a password to get in, it catered for homosexual men to meet each other, dress up, and even act out marriage ceremonies. Along with coffee, clients could also enjoy a drop of sodomy in one of the many bedrooms. Following a raid in 1726, several of the men were hanged - as sodomy was then punishable by fine, imprisonment or death.
37 ‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser, a former member of the Richardson gang and once one of London’s most feared gangsters, was shot in the head outside Turnmills nightclub in the early hours of 23 August 1991. Proving his hard man status, Frankie survived.
#History #C101