The Coleherne / The Pembroke
London’s most celebrated leather bar
The Coleherne has been a pub at this corner since 1866. From the 1950s it was a gay pub; by the 1970s it was London’s most celebrated leather bar, drawing an international clientele that included Freddie Mercury, Kenny Everett, Rudolf Nureyev, Ian McKellen and Derek Jarman. The blacked-out windows were intentional; inside, a coded hankie in the back pocket signalled preference. Armistead Maupin put it in Tales of the City; the Stranglers referenced it in “Hanging Around.”
Its shadow side must be told honestly: Dennis Nilsen, Michael Lupo and Colin Ireland each used the Coleherne to find victims across three decades – a reminder of the specific dangers gay men faced, compounded because many feared reporting to police. The community kept coming back, because where else was there to go. In 2008 it reopened as The Pembroke.