Gargoyle Club

"Survey of London[3][5]David Tennant took a 50-year lease on the upper three floors, while an existing printing works[6][7][8] established by the Novello music publishing family remained housed beneath.

All who visited the club shared its intimately democratic and rickety external lift, four-person maximum, enclosed in shining metal like an art-nouveau cabin trunk,[10] located round the corner in Meard Street.

The charismatic Tennant was the self-appointed ringmaster to an arena where Bohemians could mingle comfortably with the upper crust, according to writer and film producer Michael Luke.

Names on this list included Somerset Maugham, Noël Coward, Gladys Cooper, Leon Goossens, Gordon Craig, George Grossmith, Virginia Woolf, Duncan Grant, Nancy Cunard, Adèle Astaire, Edwina Mountbatten; an obligatory Guinness, Rothschild and Sitwell; MPs, and peers of the realm.

[13] Designed by Henri Matisse, Edwin Lutyens, and Augustus John,[17] the interior decor was theatrical – a fountain on the dance floor,[18][19] log fires in the dining room, wooden gargoyles suspended as lanterns – with a strong Moorish flavour.

[20] To complement the main club-room's elaborate coffered ceiling painted with gold leaf, like the Alhambra, he suggested covering the walls entirely with a mosaic of imperfectly cut glass tiles from an 18th-century chateau.

These were the painter's daring and inventive The Red Studio from 1911 which was displayed in the bar[22] at the Gargoyle until 1941, offered to the Tate Gallery for £400 and declined, then in 1949 joined the MoMA permanent collection in New York where it still hangs.

Several of his drawings of ballet girls grace the upstairs bar which is a cheerful spot always crowded with people discussing art, politics or women in the liveliest way.

– Stanley Jackson, 1946[26]In 1952 David Tennant sold the Gargoyle as a declining[27] concern[28][29] for £5,000 to caterer John Negus[30] and it remained popular among the generation of Francis Bacon, Antonia Fraser and Daniel Farson who would often go on from the Colony Room which was founded in 1948 by Muriel Belcher across at 41 Dean Street.

Among the original line-up here were Alexei Sayle, Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson, French & Saunders, Nigel Planer and Peter Richardson who in 1980 led these pioneers to establish the breakaway Comic Strip team elsewhere in Soho.

[47] In July 1982, among many themed weekly club-nights, came the first incarnation upstairs in the Gargoyle Club of the Batcave,[48] a Wednesday night fronted by Olli Wisdom,[49] lead singer in the house band, Specimen, and guitarist Jon Klein as art director.

Pretty soon the offbeat broadcaster Daniel Farson was calling its barmaid Ruth Soho's equivalent of Manet's famous Suzon painted serving at A Bar at the Folies Bergère.

Soon a jukebox made its appearance along with live guitar and lute recitals, and impromptu jam sessions for jazz musicians such as pianist Joe Burns, bassists Wally Wrightman and Percy Borthwick, drummers Laurie Morgan and Robin Jones, trombonist Norman Cave, singer Cab Kaye and Ronnie Scott (later founder of Soho's pre-eminent jazz club), plus visitors such as the touring Duke Ellington band.

The kitchen was forced to upgrade and, according to Michael Luke, the Mandrake became "a launching pad for the Gargoyle – a place where loins could be girded and spirits stiffened for that challenging arena up above".

I showed it to Vince and he said, I want more diamonds on it.” Howard spent some time trying to identify an audience, first with soul music, and then becoming a blatantly gay venue in those early days following liberation.

And lest we forget, in those days Soho was not full of posh restaurants and membership clubs; it was a vice-infested square mile that housed a red light above every door and on every floor."