Bohemian & Libertine · London, Greater London
The Fitzroy Tavern
The pub that named a district: Fitzrovia's all-comers salon where Dylan Thomas drank, Nina Hamnett — 'Queen of Bohemia' — held court on the subject of her lovers, and Quentin Crisp arrived nightly in full defiant maquillage. Louche, literary and gloriously unrespectable.
More stories at this spot
- Nina Hamnett's memoirs scandalising the room
- Crisp's pre-war visibility, decades ahead of the law
Sources
Nearby on the map
The Soho supper club where showgirls in feathers were forbidden to move — and where the teenage Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies met Stephen Ward, the introduction that set the Profumo affair in motion. Discretion was the house rule; history had other plans.
Documented historyBohemian & Libertine46 Gordon Square (Bloomsbury HQ)London, Greater London · EnglandThe drawing room where, one evening in 1907, Lytton Strachey pointed at a stain on Vanessa's dress and said a single unprintable word — and, as Woolf recorded, 'all barriers of reticence and reserve went down'. British conversation about sex was never quite the same; pair with Charleston for where the theory went to live.
Documented historyHot spotNotable LandmarksShaftesbury Memorial Fountain ('Eros')London, Greater London · EnglandLondon's classic lovers' meeting point — 'meet me under Eros' — though the statue is actually Anteros, the god of mature, requited love, chosen to commemorate the philanthropist Lord Shaftesbury (Gilbert called Eros/Cupid 'the frivolous tyrant').
Documented historyHot spotSpotted an error, or hold a better source? Write to marquis@marquisdemayfair.com — corrections are made, never defended. Our methodology.