Comptons of Soho
“The Grand Dame of Queer Street”
The Swiss Hotel opened here in 1890 and was known, in the understatement of the era, as “not entirely straight.” Dylan Thomas and Brian Howard drank here when it was the Swiss Tavern; by the 1970s it was openly gay. In 1986 a full renovation turned it into Comptons of Soho – the openly gay bar on Old Compton Street, the anchor around which the modern Soho scene coalesced.
Derek Jarman drank here in his last years. Directors, designers, activists, tourists and first-timers coming out to themselves all passed through. QX Magazine called it “The Grand Dame of Queer Street.” In 1986, placing a rainbow flag above a door on Old Compton Street took a particular kind of courage. Walk in on a Sunday and the bar is three deep.