Nightlife

Where London goes out after dark, district by district: the jazz cellars of Soho, the basements of Dalston, Camden's stages, Brixton's sound systems and the railway arches of Vauxhall.

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Vauxhall

Railway arches, and the oldest surviving gay venue in London at the middle of them.

ClubsCabaret & dragQueerRuns till dawn

The Royal Vauxhall Tavern has stood on Kennington Lane since 1863 and has been a gay venue since at least the 1940s, which makes it the oldest surviving one in London; it was given historic protection in 2015, the first building in the country listed for its importance to gay history. Everything else in the district grew up around it.

That everything else is mostly railway arches. The viaduct into Waterloo cuts the area into brick vaults, and the vaults took the clubs that wanted late licences and thick walls - which is how a district with almost no residents became the one that ran longest. It is not a place to wander: the arches are separated by roads built for traffic, and a night here means one room rather than several.

Where
Goding Street, Vauxhall, SE11
Nearest station
Vauxhall · 2 min walk

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Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL.

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