The 12 Bar Club was a music venue in London that opened in 1994 on Denmark Street – known as Britain's "Tin Pan Alley" – just off Charing Cross Road and close to Soho.

[5] During the early 1990s, the building housed The Forge Folk & Blues Club, founded by Andy Preston who organised the performances and Nida Daniel who managed admissions and refreshments for customers.

The club was run by Ryan, who devised the music policy and booked a host of well-known names including Bert Jansch, whose album Live at the 12 Bar: An Authorised Bootleg was recorded there in 1995, Robyn Hitchcock, Nick Harper, The Albion Band, Steve Jones, Tom Russell, Peter Rowan and the Rowan brothers, Boo Hewerdine, Gordon Giltrap, Jonathan Kalb, Richard Mazda, Suzanne Chawner, Ian Crowther, Vince McCann, and Will Kevans.

[citation needed] A small "balcony" section (allowing for 15 or 20 people) originally prevented those standing at the back on the ground level from seeing the heads of particularly tall band members.

[6] The venue was known for supporting independent promoters and less mainstream styles of music, notably hardcore punk and antifolk – the seasonal antifolk (UK) fest was held at the 12 Bar and many 'antifolk' style performers from both New York and England have played there, including Langhorne Slim, Jeffrey Lewis, Major Matt Mason, Curtis Eller, Thomas Truax, and Filthy Pedro, either at the fests themselves or like-minded nights such as Joe 'Sgt Buzfuz' Murphy's monthly 'Blang' night.

[citation needed] Other bands such as Menace, London, Rivulets, The Bleach Boys, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Sarah Gillespie, Lloyd Maines, Benjamin Shaw, Jack Hayter, Monkish, Andy White, Cud and Rhatigan,[7] Terri Hendrix and Roddy Frame of Aztec Camera also played at the 12 Bar Club.

A petition against the closure drew 17,000 signatures, including Marc Almond, David Essex, Glen Matlock, Pete Townshend and local MP Frank Dobson, but it did not save the club.

Members of the group, calling themselves "Bohemians 4 Soho," told The Guardian newspaper, "We are a collective of artists, activists and campaigners who are willing to become cultural heritage wardens for the area.

[9] On Friday, 23 January, an injunction order was affixed to a facility door prohibiting the occupants from holding a party, playing music or distributing alcohol.

[9] Whilst commentators lamented the closure of another central London music venue, Frank Turner played an impromptu gig in support of the squatters.

The protagonist of the Cormoran Strike series of crime fiction novels (written by J. K. Rowling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith) is a detective who works and lives above the 12 Bar Club's original Denmark Street location.