Historic England is about to embark on Pride of Place, a ground breaking research project that will uncover the untold queer histories of buildings and places people have lived alongside for generations.
Led by a team of historians at Leeds Beckett University’s Centre for Culture andthe Arts, people can give examples of the buildings and places special to them; from the private houses of trailblazing individuals; to the much loved local gay bar; to the first venue in town to host equal marriage and everything in between. The result will be a map of England that plots the multitude of buildings across the country that hold a sometimes hidden, sometimes public, LGBTQ history.
Duncan Wilson, Historic England Chief Executive, said: “I’m proud that Historic England is tackling the challenge of identifying those places that were so important to the lives of gay men and women during times when homosexuality was stigmatised and criminalised. Historic places can be such a graphic reminder of critically important times in our history. Recognising them means they and their embodied stories will not be forgotten.”
A trial of the map has already taken place for London and has uncovered such intriguing examples as; the Beaumont Society – the UK’s society for cross-dressing men – which held its annual dinner at the restaurant below Broadcasting House in the 1970s and 80s; Sodomite’s Walk, now part of modern day Finsbury Square, that was a popular gay cruising spot in the early 18th century; and The Shim Sham, a gay friendly and ethnically mixed jazz club set up in 1935 on Wardour Street Soho, and constantly attracted police attention.
By autumn this year, Historic England will have distilled these collective stories in to a timeline that tells LGBTQ history in England through its buildings and places. By autumn 2016, an online exhibition with archive material, images and information, that brings this fascinating topic to a wider audience, will be on the Historic England website.
