pRIDE TRAIL POI'S
e1 - e9
e1: the matador
The Matador was a bar situated in the Bull Ring Shopping Centre, which became a popular venue for women’s discos in the 1980s. It was also used by various LGB organisations as a place to put on fundraising discos in the 70s and 80s.
e2: the tow rope
In the 1950s and 60s coffee bars and cafes were as popular meeting places as pubs and bars, due to restrictive licensing laws. The Tow Rope, on broad Street, was one such cafe.
e3: the woodman pub
The Woodman was an ornate Victorian Bar situated on Easy Row, popular with gay men in the 1940s and 50s. It was demolished in 1964 to make way for the Paradise Circus section of the Inner Ring Road.
e4: fletchers walk
Many places in Birmingham have been used as cruising spots.
e5: spartan sauna
Birmingham’s longest established gay Sauna open since the early 80s. Situated in a quite residential street in Erdington, in a converted Victorian terraced house, it closed in 2008.
e6: farmers bridge locks
Stretching from The National Indoor Arena to to St Chads Cathedral, the 13 Farmers Bridge Locks provided until recently a quiet, undisturbed subterranean world popular as a Cruising ground for gay men. In the 1980s and before the lock flight was a semi derelict world of abandoned warehouses and derelict factories. Regeneration of the area has caused a vast decline in such behaviour, but it’s still dark enough to get some graffiti out!
e7: the fountain inn
The Fountain opened in 1991. The bar tends to have a mainly male clientle, although women are welcome.
“Sheila’s Bar” was held on a Tuesday night, in the back room of the Station Pub in King’s Heath, from approximately 1988 to the early 90s.
e8: the station pub
e9: The loft
The Loft Lounge is a small bar on Bromsgrove St. in the gay village with a great selection of cocktails to finish the trail with.