Welcome to our growing digital archive of Queer Places! A completely free to access archive celebrating the vibrant, humble and sometimes filthy LGBTQ+ spaces of Liverpool's past, present and future. Here, we hope to preserve, collect and share some of the fascinating tales as told by our community - shedding light on the people and their selfless resistance that have made these spaces possible.
An exciting part of the project is re-modelling our historic LGBTQ+ venues. Using people's memories, archival photographs and records to create 3D models and illustrations, we revisit these places and uncover their once hidden stories. So have a browse through this early digital archive and we hope you are inspired to think about the memories you may hold as queer people or allies that need to be added to our growing archive!
LIVERPOOL'S QUEER PLACES - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
Evidence of an unofficial ‘gay town’ has existed in Liverpool since the 1930s, with venues around Queen Square often refered to by locals. As we begin to search for these pioneering addresses in our city archives, we discover very little about them. Most of the bars that had first served as a refuge for LGBTQ+ people had been demolished by the 1980s, leaving the few surviving records of them in the conversations, memories and ephemera of those who dared to visit them. This cycle has repeated itself throughout most of recent history, with the many Queer spaces that Liverpool has loved, fought for and lost far too often fading into distant memory. These places and their stories are so important. They are crucial to understanding the history of everyday Queer experiences, yet they still remain largely undocumented.
Recording the spaces that LGBTQ+ people have not necessarily built - but inhabited, claimed territory of, existed in, remained visible or invisible in, loved, read, cooked, laughed, danced, performed and belonged in - will help us to build a more complete history of our community tomorrow.
A collage celebrating Liverpool’s LGBTQ+ community based records.
Source images: Museum of Liverpool, Liverpool Central Library & Archives, Homotopia, John Harrison, News from Nowhere & Sonic Yootha.
This archive celebrates a selection of LGBTQ+ spaces that have served our community over the past 80 years. It tells the story of Queer Liverpool’s past and present from the community itself. It shines a light on the people and their selfless resistance that have made these spaces possible. It also highlights the fragility of our Queer spaces, showing us what information is missing in our timelines and what stories we should prioritise as a community to preserve, collect and share.
The spaces we explore range from physical locations to events, ephemeral moments and stories. Categorised into past, present and future, we begin to understand the evolution of Liverpool’s LGBTQ+ spaces, how our delicate yet resistant territories came to be today, and what we can hope for our future. We explore this through a range of newly resurfaced images, records and first-hand accounts as shared by our community. An exciting part of this project is the remodeling of these spaces - created using descriptions from the people who lived through them and archival photographs. Here, we hope to find a new way for our community to interact with its intangible heritage - just without the sticky beer and popper soaked carpets. These models are by no means accurate, instead a rare view into the memories that people hold of these special places.
Fundamentally, each of the spaces featured in this guide has been created and inhabited by people who sought to connect with their Queer-ness and other Queer people. We hope you can connect to their stories and hold a more positive representation of Liverpool’s LGBTQ+ heritage.