The Queer History of Bankside

Join Mr Londoner, aka blue badge tour guide Antony Robbins, in exploring and celebrating Bankside’s chaotic and bawdy history. You’ll discover what the ‘Liberty of the Clink’ was and how the area, especially from the 12th century, became a place of outsiders and experimenters. These counter-culture figures are remembered today at the Shrine of the Outcast Dead at the Crossbones graveyard.

Discover the inns, taverns, brothels and theatres that were a showcase of gender-fluidity and how drag queens were invented in Bankside’s Elizabethan theatres.

Find out how Bankside invented having ‘goose bumps’ and how Shakespeare himself was most likely bisexual, exploring some of those themes in his plays and sonnets.

This event is part of Better Bankside’s celebration of Pride and the LGBTQ+ community of Bankside. See Pride in Bankside for more details.