London Lesbian and Gay Centre

The London Lesbian and Gay Centre was a lesbian and gay community centre located at 67-69 Cowcross Street, London. It was established in 1985 by the Greater London Council (GLC), which donated three-quarters of a million pounds to its establishment.

In 1984 The GLC published Changing The World - a charter of gay rights and supported a number of open meetings in the council chamber of County Hall during that summer. These resulted in the creation of a working group to create one of the few LGBT community centres in the UK, after Edinburgh Gay Centre which opened in 1974, Manchester Gay Centre on Bloom Street (1981) and the Birmingham Lesbian and Gay Community Centre which had opened in 1976. The group included Brian Kennedy, Revd Richard Kirker, Helen Carr, Helen Jenkins, Alison Wheeler, Jaci Quennell and Lisa Power amongst many others.

After looking at many buildings, the working group located a disused former meat warehouse near Smithfield market in Farringdon which could be suitably converted and this was purchased by the GLC. It opened unofficially in December 1984, with plans to include club/performance space, cooking and dining space, a bookshop, a daycare, a lounge and meeting room, a media resource center, offices and other meeting spaces. Plans were drawn up to convert the building to community use, with a club / theatre space in the basement, a bar and cafe on the ground floor with outdoor patio, and facilities for printing and photography on the first floor run by the Technical Resources Collective and who printed the Centre's monthly diary (alongside) and other leaflets. The second floor was designated as women only space and the third (top) floor was converted to offices for the Centre management team, with some rooms being leased to other organisations, such as PACE. All areas of the building had full disabled access via a small passenger lift serving all floors, a larger (formerly goods) lift serving all except the top floor, and a ramp at the rear between the cafe-bar and the courtyard area, which overlooked the train and tube tracks. Many LGBT organisations were allowed to use the centre for postal purposes, such as Presente, the Lesbian and gay solidarity group for Nicaragua. Many others used the meeting rooms for regular groups.

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