60's Clubs,Dance Venues And Coffee Bars In And Around Welling

A Memory of Welling.

During the 1960's many venues opened in and around Welling to cater for a growing music and dance culture. Teddy-boys and Rockers had frequented the Embassy Ballroom, but when Mod became the dominating style, so came the clubs and bars to satisfy the kids desire for great music and a place to dance. The Tuesday Club and Thursday Club on The Green, Welling, began as a rock venue where resident band Jason and the Avengers went down a storm. Later the clubs converted to an exclusive R&B and Top ten playlist. Lorraine's coffee bar on Welling High Street was a meeting place for top Mods known as Faces, but it wasn't until the opening of the Inferno in the old British Legion Hall down Station Approach that a true Mod dance club appeared. When the Inferno mysteriously burnt down to spookily live up to its name, The Twisted Wheel took over for local Mods, though the space for dancing was limited. 144 Longlands Road, Sidcup, was the site of the famed Austral Club, and on the High Street in St Mary's Cray, held in a huge Georgian house, was The Iron Curtain, an iconic Mod venue specialising in R&B, Soul and Ska. In Woolwich the Black Cat, the Nine Steps and the Ska Bar were notable dance clubs, also the Shakespeare Hotel in Powis Street, a pub venue with a decent dance floor visited by many R&B bands including John Mayal's Bluesbreakers, Long John Baldry and the Downliner Sect. Grove Park had Bal Tabarin on the Downham Estate, adjacent to the Downham Tavern. Catford had The Witchdoctor dancehall which ceremoniously bathed dancers in ultra violet light and so lived up to its name.The El Patido in Lewisham was the only bone fide black club and a kind of Mecca for Mods wanting to hear the latest import R&B records and learn the current dance. The Mod circuit was far and wide and hundreds of kids gathered at these venues throughout any given week, names of whom have been collected over the years and will appear shortly as a roll call of honour to a wonderful era.