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The Gargoyle Club was a private club on the upper floors of 69 Dean Street, Soho, London, at the corner with Meard Street. It was founded on 16 January 1925 by the aristocratic socialite David Tennant, son of the Baron Glenconner. David was the brother of Stephen Tennant who was a prominent member of the social set called "Bright Young People" and of Edward Tennant, the poet who was killed in action in World War I.
"In 1834 No. 69 was taken by Vincent Novello, the composer and musical editor, and his son, Joseph Alfred, music seller and publisher, who were perhaps responsible for the erection of the back premises, with the wall still fronting Meard Street. Vincent's daughter, Clara, the singer, was also living here in 1840 and the painter, J. P. Davis, in 1842. In 1847 the firm of Novello became music printers also. It was probably in 1864–5 that the upper storeys were added to No. 69 to accommodate the printing works. In 1867 the firm removed to Berners Street but in 1871 the printing works returned to No. 69, and No. 70 was bought in 1875 for the storage of plates. Thenceforward the firm occupied both houses until 1898, when it moved to new printing works in Hollen Street."
Survey of LondonSurvey of London: Volumes 33 and 34, St Anne Soho. Originally published by London County Council, London, 1966.
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.
Of the club's opening night The Daily Telegraph observed that its 300-strong list of members "probably contains more famous names in society and the arts than any other purely social club". Names on this list included Somerset Maugham, Noël Coward, Gladys Cooper, Leon Goossens, Gordon Craig, George Grossmith, Virginia Woolf, Duncan Grant, Nancy Cunard, Adele Astaire, Edwina Mountbatten; an obligatory Guinness family, Rothschild and The Sitwells; MPs, and peers of the realm.
The young Tennant bought two of Matisse's paintings in Paris for £600 and in the opinion of Anthony Powell they "lent an air of go-ahead culture to the club". These were the painter's daring and inventive The Red Studio from 1911 which was displayed in the bar 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. The other Matisse, The Studio, Quai St Michel (1916), features his favourite model the voluptuous Lorette, naked on a couch, on the club's stairs. Today she resides in Washington DC in The Phillips Collection, "100 Years After the Armory Show". Phillips Collection, 1 August 2013. after Tennant, feeling himself to be on the verge of ruin, sold it for "a derisory sum" to Douglas Cooper, who in turn sold it on.
"The decor is bright but tasteful and Matisse gave his expert advice. 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. ‘My unpaid cabaret,’ David Tennant calls them… The restaurant downstairs seats 140 and its ceiling and general design have been modelled on the Alhambra at Granada. The mirrors are particularly attractive, unless you have drunk too much gin!... The four-piece band led by Alec Alexander, suits the style of the club. It delivers lively, cheerful music that you can dance to without having your nerves torn to shreds. Alec knows all the members and seems to enjoy playing requests." – Stanley Jackson, 1946
On 19 May 1979 in the Gargoyle's rooftop club space Hammersmith-born insurance salesman Peter Rosengard "Latest News". Peter Rosengard website. Retrieved 07–04–18. started a weekly club night on Saturdays called the Comedy Store, in partnership with comedian Don Ward. It was modelled on the original in Los Angeles, and invited audiences to show approval or disapproval of the unknown acts performing by "gonging" them off. The London Comedy Store made the reputations of many of the UK's upcoming "alternative comedians". 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. All were to prove influential in reshaping British television comedy throughout the 1980s as stars of The Comic Strip Presents.
In July 1982, among many themed weekly club-nights, came the first incarnation upstairs in the Gargoyle Club of the Batcave, a Wednesday night fronted by Olli Wisdom, lead singer in the house band, Specimen, and guitarist Jon Klein as art director. Visitors included Robert Smith, Siouxsie Sioux, Steve Severin, Foetus, Marc Almond and Nick Cave. The Nell Gwynne strip-teasers were still performing from 2.30 pm until late evening, when they could be seen exiting via the rickety lift, even as Batcavers queued to come up.
By the year's end, when the upper floors were sold off, the one-nighters such as Batcave moved on. The Comedy Store moved to a series of other venues, taking over 28a Leicester Square (previously the Subway club) in 1985. It had become a template for the new style of stand-up comedy clubs that opened around the land. Don Ward dissolved his business relationship with Rosengard in late 1981 while remaining CEO of Comedy Store interests. In 1984 Rosengard went on to manage the band Curiosity Killed the Cat.
Regulars included Nina Hamnett, Brian Howard and Julian Maclaren-Ross for whom Watson would cash cheques in the form of credit behind the bar. Private membership clubs were allowed to stay open during the strict afternoon closing hours imposed on pubs by the licensing laws, as well as late into the early hours after the 10.30 pm closing time for pubs. One condition was that clubs were required to serve food with alcohol. Result: the Mandrake became notorious for its stale sandwiches piled behind the bar, in Watson's view available “for drinking with, not for eating”! Inevitably the drinkers grew to outnumber the thinkers. 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. And the 1960s brought in the legendary painters and poets who were reinforcing Soho's reputation for general non-conformity. 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".
By the 1970s the Mandrake had acquired a new pedimented entrance door on Meard Street, curiously now east of the Gargoyle's, just a couple of yards nearer to Dean Street. Its lease was then acquired by Soho's only Jamaican club owner, Vince Howard, who changed its name to Billy's. Vince Howard in the cover story of The Face magazine in February 1983 was described as "a Soho legend himself, straight out of Shaft, huge hats, fistfuls of rings and the only black man to own a venue in Soho." The publication also quoted his jeweller describing a mountainous ring he was making for the glamorous club owner: “18‑carat gold, 16 diamonds, it shone like a torch. 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.
“A rather seedy gay club frequented by rough lesbians and even rougher trannies... It was owned by a 300-pound six-foot-four black convicted pimp named Vince who sported a huge black fedora, a long leather coat, and fingers the size of sausages with enough diamond rings to give Imelda Marcos cause for concern. 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." – Chris Sullivan on Billy’s in his book, We Can Be Heroes (2012).Graham Smith; Chris Sullivan. We Can be Heroes: Punks, Poseurs, Peacocks and People of a Particular Persuasion – page 48 (Unbound, 2012)
Billy's changed its name to Gossip's and became part of London's clubbing heritage by spawning scores of weekly club-nights that transformed Britain's music and fashion scene during the 1980s, crucially a Bowie night run by Steve Strange and Rusty Egan who teamed up at Billy's in 1978 and went on to open the hugely influential Blitz Club which kick-started the movement.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's first date took place at the Dean Street Dining Room in the Dean Street Townhouse in 2016.
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