The Criterion
A great centre for London’s Uranians
The entrance is a few steps below pavement level – and once inside, almost nothing has changed since the 1890s. The Byzantine gold mosaic ceiling, the mirrored arches, the gilded tiles: Thomas Verity’s Grade I listed room is one of the great Victorian interiors in London. By 1905 the gay writer and activist George Ives was noting it as “a great centre for inverts.” By the 1920s regulars had given it two nicknames: the Witches’ Cauldron and the Bargain Basement. In 1932 a social observer documented around 200 men here, openly affectionately behaved, wearing makeup, applying lipstick in public, kissing in greeting. The police threatened the licence repeatedly through the 1930s. The Criterion ignored them. It is still here.