Inside London’s gangster clubs

Often, London’s criminal underworld operates with a wink and a nudge. After all, it isn’t the nature of organised crime to conduct everything out in the open. And those that say too much about what goes on, well, it’s likely to be the last thing they say.

From the Krays to the Russian Mob, organised crime’s hold on British nightlife is difficult to quantify. In films and on TV nightclubs and pubs make perfectly inconspicuous fronts for criminal mis-dealings (OK, not so inconspicuous, after all).

In real life, it’s a little harder to separate fact from fiction. So, while that pub at the end of your road, or your favourite nightclub may well be home to dodgy dealings, it behooves us to keep schtum about it.

Instead, here are some of the capital’s historical, crime-ridden drinking holes and dancing dens. ‘Glitz’ and ‘glamour’ aside, they’re maybe not the best place for a quiet pint…

The Astor Club

Mayfair’s Astor club ran from the 1930s to the late 1970s, attracting everyone from royals to erm, car dealers and aristocrats. For twenty years from the 1950s to its closure, it was a fixture in London nightlife, and arguably the most famous club in the capital.

The venue was owned by businessman Bertie Green, a man described by Michele Monro, daughter of singer Matt Monro as “[not] one of nature’s gentlemen. He had a very bad reputation as a villain and used to sign artists up with the sole intention of doing nothing and then suing them… a greedy bastard, a no-good greedy bastard.”

Gangsters were regular customers, including the ‘psychotic’ Frankie Fraser who used a hatchet to assault an associate of the Krays outside the club. Gangster Billy Hill also drew controversy to the club when he was accused of offering a man £500 plus the cost of plastic surgery if he would let Hill slash him across the face outside the club. Two years later, in 1958, an Astor doorman, Jimmy Nash, was acquitted of murder after allegedly shooting another man in a club in Spitalfields. Jury meddling got the charge down to GBH, and Nash collected five year’s inside instead of death by hanging.

It’s difficult to talk about London mob life of the time without mentioning the Krays. In 1965 the East End family allegedly squared off with South London’s Richardson Gang in the pub. During the scrap, gangster George Cornell allegedly made homophobic remarks against Ronnie Kray, leading to a gangland war, and Cornell being shot dead less than a year later (more on that in a minute).

The club eventually closed in the 1970s.

The Krays

Another Kray twin haunt, this nightclub in Wilton Place, Knightsbridge was actually owned by the brothers from 1960 until it closed its doors in 1963, and was a way for the brothers to expand their reach into the West End.

As depicted in the 2015 film Legend, the Krays became owners of the club after extorting landlord Peter Rachman. The story goes that, owing the Krays money and wanting them off his back permanently, Rachman arranged for the club to pass into their hands, arranging the purchase from Stefan de Faye for the sum of £1,000.

The club let Reggie rub shoulders with the likes of artists Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud and furthered his film star persona, despite the club being used for the prostitution of young boys, an enterprise the Krays used to blackmail high profile public figures.

In the end, the Krays let their friends run up large debts, with the club’s manager even offering the brothers a grand a week to stay away. They refused but, with their business interests in the area becoming increasingly unwieldily, Esmeralda’s Barn closed at the end of 1963.

Although not a London spot, Birmingham’s The Red Door was closed down in 2022 after being dubbed Britain’s ‘roughest nightclub’. According to the Daily Mail, shootings, assaults, stabbings and drug deals were “commonplace” at the club before it was shut down in August of 2022.

“During the more than a year that it was illegally operating down an alleyway, it saw one man stabbed 13 times during a fight on October 31 last year while another was knifed in the leg on June 18 as well as several brawls and drug-dealing,” the Mail notes, explaining that the pub was being illegally run down an alleyway.

Cops eventually used bolt-cutters to gain access, shutting it down for good. “This will come as a huge relief to local residents whose lives have been blighted by the anti-social behaviour and crime this venue attracts,” local police inspector Nick Hill said.

As anyone who’s seen TV’s Gangs of London knows, London’s nightlife is thought to be rife with gang activity not just from the UK, but across Europe and beyond. Because we quite like our legs as they are (i.e. not broken) we’re going to steer clear of speculating over this sort of thing. But, we can bring you the story of the Platinum Club, based in Salavat in south-central Russia.

In 2018 it was reported that more than 20 armed men attacked the club’s bouncers with machetes, baseball bats, hammers, golf clubs and guns firing rubber bullets.

According to witnesses, the men yelled “Beat up everyone! Destroy everything in there!”

According to the owner of the club, it was 30 men, not 20 and it was a confrontation between local men with criminal records and the bouncers. Hmm. Sounds a bit like overkill. The next day, two men were arrested. The club’s current status is unknown, which is probably for the best…

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