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Popular: the Royal Vauxhall Tavern

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ROBERT BEVAN | Friday 26 June 2015 | 0 comments

Power to pink buildings: why Historic England is battling tosave London's gay architectural heritageLondon’s gay architectural heritage is disappearing under pressure from new property development. Is it time to give these hauntsofficial protection?

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The blue plaque on Oscar Wilde’s house in Tite Street,Chelsea, records only that the playwright once lived there. Itsays nothing about the persecution he endured for hissexuality. Similarly, the Derbyshire house of the pioneeringsocial reformer Edward Carpenter — a key figure in the

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history of gay rights — has, unlike the unassuming childhoodhomes of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, no nationalrecognition or legal protection from being destroyed. Of thehundreds of thousands of officially listed buildings, not asingle one is explicitly preserved for its lesbian or gayconnections.

Britain’s lesbian and gay lives have been hidden from history —necessarily so in an age of illegality but unconscionably since. Now,Historic England (formerly English Heritage) is embarking on aprogramme to recognise the UK’s LGBT+ heritage and to mark and,in perhaps a dozen cases, protect historic places by placing themon the national heritage list.

It could very well start with the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. The southLondon pub is perhaps the capital’s longest surviving gay venueand one of the oldest still in use in the world.

Once billed “the London Palladium of drag”, new ownership hasbrought with it potentially threatening changes. Following acommunity push, Historic England is now considering listing it.This would make it a criminal offence to alter or destroy it withoutconsent. A decision is expected imminently.

The lively pub is the last link in a chain of London entertainmentvenues that goes back to the 17th century. It stands on the site ofVauxhall Pleasure Gardens, famous for centuries for its music(Handel performed there) and infamous for the debauchery ofGeorgian Londoners in its concealing arbours.

The listing could come in the nick of time because LGBT+ venuesare rarely owned by the community they serve. In the past year inLondon more than a dozen have shut for good — about a third ofthe capital’s total — including such bars and clubs as Madame Jojo’s,The Black Cap and the Joiners Arms. Others, such as The Yard inSoho, have survived repeated plans for redevelopment.

Among those who have written to Historic England voicing theirsupport for the listing are performers and politicians including SirIan McKellen, Government minister Nick Boles, shadow culturesecretary Chris Bryant and Vauxhall MP Kate Hoey.

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Gay icon: Sir Ian McKellen (Picture: Dave Benett)

McKellen singles out the pub as a key site for lesbian and gayhistory. It has, he says, “been the home of the gay communitythrough times of great change”. And, of course, it has been a placeof entertainment, an experimental launching pad for cabaret actsand performers who later became mainstream. Paul O’Grady, whoperformed there and has also written in support of the campaign,says: “It was where Lily Savage grew to become a household name.”The pub has launched urban myths too, such as the time whenFreddie Mercury and Kenny Everett reputedly butched-up PrincessDiana in leather-man drag and sneaked her in.

Olivier Award-nominated director and writer Neil Bartlett confirmsthe pub’s place in London’s arts history: “I doubt if Nick Hytner atthe National Theatre would have been quite so confident aboutcommissioning a radical gay love story [Or You Could Kiss Me]from Handspring and me if the artists working at the Tavern hadnot demonstrated how forward-looking the traditions of LGBTperformance have become.”

After the orchestral music faded and Vauxhall Pleasure Gardensclosed in 1859, the Vauxhall Tavern became one of the first newbuildings on the site in 1863. It may incorporate iron columnsrescued from the garden’s pavilions.

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Post-war clearances saw these Victorian buildings demolished intheir turn, with only the curve-fronted pub surviving as a linkacross centuries of entertainment history — back through panto toqueer London’s molly houses of the 18th century. Inside, the baronce famous as a stage for dancing drag queens was shifted asidein the Eighties as the venue helped pioneer flexible pub/clubperformance spaces.

A mural of Olympic diver Tom Daley outside the Vauxhall Tavern (Picture: MichaelMatthews/Stockimo/Alamy)

A number of prominent architects and academics have vouchedfor the Tavern’s architectural credentials, including Nigel Coates,emeritus professor of architecture at the Royal College of Art. Hedescribes the pub as “an island of dignity in the whirling indifferentinterchange that is Vauxhall. The possibility of its destruction isunthinkable, both from the architectural point of view and for itsenduring popularity as an alternative venue. For London to retainits unique success, the drive for renewal needs to be offset withcultural anchors.” Quite.

Some put the slew of closures of these important cultural placesdown to the rise of dating sites, or the lack of need for such refugesin cosmopolitan London. But whatever the truth, it is an analysisthat forgets that these places are often still busy. If it were justdating apps killing the gay scene, how come dozens of bars thrive

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in Paris, Berlin or even tiny Copenhagen?

Professor Coates is correct when he talks of amnesiac “renewal”because it is simply unsentimental property development that isthe cause of London’s diminishing diversity. This is also true inother areas of the Anglo-Saxon world such as San Francisco andSydney, where gay venues are under similar threat from vastlyoverheated property markets. Just this week, the Stonewall Inn,New York’s historic gay bar, has been declared a city landmark,providing the important precedent of a building being protectedfor its significance to LGBT+ history.

London’s pubs generally — gay and straight — have beenparticularly vulnerable to escalating residential land values but theloss of gay pubs is particularly felt because it is there that so muchof British gay identity was forged, often in run-down areas or red-light districts such as Soho.

Still doing the business: revellers at the Vauxhall Tavern (Picture: Daniel Govan)

In April, the Black Cap in Camden suddenly closed because its newowners want to turn its upper floors into flats. There has beenshock, anger and colourful protests to save it.

Ben Walters, a writer on performance who is leading the campaignto save the Vauxhall Tavern, says of both the Black Cap and theTavern: “They were world-famous symbols of London’sprogressive, transgressive, liberal and experimental history. Bothwere still active on a weekly basis, producing popular, dynamic andradical art … in ways that are possible at fewer and fewer sites inLondon today.”

The same is true of countless other places that are vital to creativeLondon, including the vanishing artists’ studios in the East End andthe visible shift in Soho from long-standing independentbusinesses to chain stores and bars.

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Unfortunately, while a place on the national heritage list shouldprotect the Vauxhall Tavern from demolition, it could still beturned into another branch of Pret a Manger tomorrow and thereis little, realistically, that could be done to stop it. This is becauseBritain’s planning rules governing change of use to buildings on ourhigh streets have been calculatedly dismantled — boostingbusiness, in theory, but busting history and diversity in the process.

Similarly, Soho may be a conservation area but with planningcontrols the weakest they have been in a generation there isprecious little we can do to protect its character. Contrast this withBarcelona, where this year new rules were introduced to helpprotect 228 historic shops, restaurants and bars from rising rents.

London’s built heritage has long attested to our world-renownedpluralism. The places and spaces that secured that reputation arevanishing and with them the touchstones that help cement identityin a place and connect us with our shared past. In the face of thecapital’s devouring property obsession we are in danger ofbecoming marooned from ourselves.

The Evening Standard proudly supports Pride in London, the annualfestival that celebrates the capital’s LGBT+ community, which runsuntil Sunday. The theme of this year’s parade, on Saturday, is#PrideHeroes. You can nominate and vote for your #PrideHeroes atprideinlondon.org

Watch London Live's Pride coverage live on Saturday at 4-6pm.Freeview 8, Sky 117, Virgin 159, YouView 8

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