Brixton walk: Find out more about Brixton’s hidden LGBTQ+ history on Sunday,19th Aril 2025
Brixton has long had a history of LGBTQ+ activity. This is in part due to a failed 1960s plan by the Greater London Council to create a huge high speed …
Black News 
Brixton has long had a history of LGBTQ+ activity. This is in part due to a failed 1960s plan by the Greater London Council to create a huge high speed motorway hub through the centre of Brixton, so large swaths of Victorian housing stock were emptied for demolition to make way for the new London Ringway.
Thankfully, the project never happened, and the empty properties were soon occupied by a new generation of squatters and activists who rallied against the status quo of the 1950s generation including a higher than average proportion of LGBTQ+ people.
Some of the squats contained many of the founder members of the Gay Liberation Front and for a time the South London Gay Centre was on Railton Road. Even today, the borough of Lambeth has the highest LGBTQ+ identifying population in London.
In the late 1980s, The Landmark opened on Tulse Hill, becoming the first ever Day Centre for people with HIV/AIDS.
The Centre was opened by Princess Diana, and the picture of her shaking Jonathan Grimshaw’s hand, who had been HIV+ for 5 years, was shared around the world, changing attitudes and beginning to break down prejudices. At the time the Police would still use rubber gloves to handle people suspected of being HIV+ or having AIDS.
Brockwell Park would later become the home the UK’s National Gay Pride celebrations for three years including the world’s first ever Euro Pride celebration in 1992.
Over 100 thousand people reveled in the park with performances from Holly Johnson, Boy Geroge and Lily Savage. These events also paved the way for more commercial queer festivals such as Summer Rites, Purple in the Park and the latest incarnation Mighty Hoopla.
Take a tour
Did you know the area had a now lost gay pub in the 1980s and a whole host of queer night club venues?
The first ever LGBTQ+ Rainbow crossing in the UK?
Learn more about some of Brixton’s now forgotten queer artists.
Come and find out about all these stories and many more by joining experienced Lambeth Tour Guides Adrian and Clare on Sunday 19th April at12 noon at the steps of Brixton Library. Tickets and further details on the newly revamped Lambeth Tour Guides website
