The Latchmere
The Latchmere is a Victorian pub on Battersea Park Road with a long-established theatre space upstairs, known from the 1980s as the Latchmere Theatre and later as Theatre503, which continues to operate there today. In the mid-1990s, the pub’s upstairs theatre bar — often referred to as the Backstage Bar — was listed in gay guides, indicating its place within south London’s queer social geography at the time.
A 1994 article in The Independent described the upstairs as a “not-very-gay thespian bar,” a phrase that captures the nature of the space: mixed rather than explicitly labelled, but closely associated with performers, theatre audiences and gay men. Such theatre bars often became informally queer through their clientele and atmosphere rather than overt branding.
The Backstage Bar functioned as a socially coded environment where LGBTQ+ people could gather within an otherwise mainstream venue. Over time, changes in branding and management meant the separate name fell out of use, and the site is now marketed simply as The Latchmere with Theatre503 upstairs. Its history reflects how queer life in south London often took shape within hybrid cultural spaces, particularly theatre pubs, rather than in purpose-built gay bars alone.
You may also be interested in
