Historic gay bar in that served LGBT+ customers even when it was illegal to be gay may return – My London

A historic gay bar in North London which bravely served its customers back when it was illegal to be gay might be re-opening. The Black Cap in Camden was forced to shut down seven years ago, to the dismay of its lifelong-loyal customers. But the famous LGBT+ venue could soon be back stronger than ever, thanks to the steadfast determination of its most die-hard fans.

The tight-knit Black Cap Community banded together within a week of their beloved LGBT+ venue closing its doors, on a sad Sunday in April 2015. The loyal group of ex-customers and performers were devastated to lose The Black Cap, which for decades had been a thriving hub of queer culture, back-room cabaret, boozy brunches – and for many, a second family.

Alex Green, 59, a writer, producer, performer and entertainer, went to The Black Cap every weekend for more than 30 years while it was still open, and has been many weekends since it closed. Alex is one of the hard core of the Black Cap CommunityBenefits Society, now a registered company, formed of ex-customers on a steadfast mission to acquire and re-open The Black Cap.

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It was the 1980s when Alex first set foot inside The Black Cap. The 19-year-old fresh-faced punk had just moved to London from Leeds, after signing a first record deal with his band. Naturally, he moved into a squat in Camden, on Georgiana Street just five minutes away from The Black Cap. “I’d been to Heaven a couple of times but I’d never been to a gay pub,” said Alex.

“So I wandered in with my blonde spiky hair. I really quickly I got the sense that this place was full of people who were like my tribe.” The Black Cap was worlds apart from the working men’s clubs Alex’s had gone to with his family while growing up in Yorkshire – but the pubs did have one thing in common.

“The Black Cap was never pretentious,” said Alex. “It was just this wonderful mix of people of colour, loads of lesbians, and trans people… In the ’90s when every gay club became young white guys with their tops off taking ecstasy, the cap never became that. It was always this really interesting place full of different characters and different LGBT people that you wouldn’t find mixing anywhere else – and that’s what I really loved about it.”

The Black Cap quickly became Alex’s local, but for many it was also a way of life. Alex described how his community built their social lives around the pub. They would meet there on a Friday and Saturday afternoon before going out for the night, and would sometimes even head straight back to the cap on a Sunday afternoon for the cabaret without having been home.

“New Year’s Eve we’d always go there because it was so intimate,” said Alex. “It was really important for my social life.” Alex loved how steeped in history the pub was. He explained: “Since a good few years before it was legal to be gay it was one of the pubs that was known as a place you could go as a queer person and go to the back room and watch cabaret, and much of that was drag.”

He added: “I remember meeting people in the cap from a different generation, and the stories they’d tell me were heart-breaking. The community didn’t have anywhere else to go.” Alex explained how the Black Cap was one of the few places where LGBT+ people had a link to their history, where it “hadn’t been obliterated.”

Alex said around five or six years before it closed the pub changed hands, and the previously well looked venue quickly began to feel run down, until it became a shadow of its former self. “There would literally be wee coming from the ceiling,” said Alex forlornly. In 2015, despite its longstanding legacy, the pub closed.

Camden’s LGBT+ community was shocked, said Alex. They had known it was coming, but didn’t expect it to happen so quickly. “Hundreds of people who would go there every week suddenly had nowhere to go,” said Alex. But the Black Cap regulars weren’t about to let their favourite pub go that easily. Within days the community had galvanised, forming The Black Cap Community.

“The next Saturday there was 1000 people outside the cap,” explained Alex. “We had a big double decker bus with drag queens hanging off it, and celebs came.” After that, the group began holding vigils outside the Black Cap. “Since then, every Saturday, bar a couple of illnesses and pride events, we’ve had someone there,” said Alex.

Since 2015 the group’s relentless and passionate campaign has gone from strength to strength. Now officially the Black Cap Community Benefits Society, the group has won protections for the pub so it has to remain a pub, continue to be a performance venue, and also has to be aimed at the LGBT+ community.

The group’s next big mission is to take over the pub so they can re-open it themselves – and Alex is hopeful. “We’ve had surveys and valuations done in the last few months,” he told MyLondon. “We are strongly pursuing the purchase of the freehold, and we are in negotiation with the owners, supported by Camden council and other business partners.”

He added: “The cap is more of an arts and culture project, and that’s a massive undertaking. But we’re pretty confident that once we have an agreement on purchase, [there are] lots of options to allow us to get the place refurbished and reopened.”

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