Queer Soho: Sex, Scandal & Subculture — LGBTQ+ History Walking Tour

Queer Soho: Sex, Scandal & Subculture — LGBTQ+ History Walking Tour
N

ByNick Collinson

Follow

Whitfield GardensLondon, England
Sunday, November 22 • 2 PM - 4 PM

Overview
Discover scandalous, surprising and often hidden LGBTQ+ stories of Soho on this entertaining walking tour through the heart of queer London

A storytelling-led LGBTQ+ history walk through the streets of London’s most famous queer neighbourhood…
Soho has long been London’s pressure valve — a place where desire, rebellion and creativity have been allowed to bubble up, even when the rest of the city tried to clamp down.
For centuries, its narrow streets have offered anonymity and opportunity in equal measure: somewhere to disappear, to perform, to meet — and sometimes to be caught.
On this guided walk, we’ll peel back the layers of Soho’s queer past, from Tudor laws that made sex between men a capital crime, to the molly houses of the eighteenth century, Victorian scandals that shook the establishment, and the clubs, cafés and corners where queer life continued under constant scrutiny.
This is not a story of steady progress, but of advances and backlashes, moral panics and quiet acts of defiance.
We’ll meet early drag queens with outrageous names, rent boys navigating a rigid class system, writers and artists who bent gender and sexuality on the page and stage, and club-goers who danced through police raids and prejudice.
We’ll explore how Soho became a place of queer visibility — and why that visibility so often came at a cost.
The story continues into the twentieth century, as queer Soho was shaped by nightlife, music, censorship and protest: from basement clubs and lesbian havens to bookshops under siege, and from the devastating impact of Section 28 to moments of solidarity forged in the face of violence.
Along the way, familiar names appear — Wilde, Woolf, Bacon, Bowie and more — but always as part of a much bigger, messier story.
Queer Soho is a walk about sex and scandal, certainly — but it’s also about subculture, survival and the sheer persistence of queer life in a neighbourhood that has never been entirely respectable, and never quite tame.
The walk lasts approximately two hours and takes place through the streets of Soho. Please dress for the weather.

Read more

Good to know

Highlights
2 hours
ages 16+
In person
Paid parking

Refund Policy
Refunds up to 7 days before event

Highlights
2 hours
ages 16+
In person
Paid parking

Refund Policy
Refunds up to 7 days before event

Location

Whitfield Gardens
Tottenham Court Road
London W1T 4TB

How do you want to get there?

Driving
Public transport
Biking
Walking

Show map

Organized by
N

Nick Collinson

Contact Follow

Report this event