Fire

2000s–2010s

The all-night engine of Vauxhall

Fire, in the arches off South Lambeth Road, was the giant of the Vauxhall after-hours scene – a multi-room, all-night (and all-day) club that, with its neighbours, made the area synonymous with weekend-long partying in the 2000s. Its late licences and cavernous spaces drew thousands and pulled the centre of gravity of London’s gay clubland decisively south of the river.

Fire embodied both the exhilaration and the excess of Vauxhall’s peak years. As the scene contracted and the arches were redeveloped, its heyday passed – but for a decade it was the engine room of the New Village.