King’s Cross goods yard had always operated twenty-four hours a day, but this activity took place out of the gaze of the public. After the Criminal Justice Act of 1994 had curtailed large outdoor raves, King’s Cross once more came alive at night, this time with young people going to clubs that opened at midnight through until the morning. Clubbers flocked to the abandoned Victorian warehouses and brick railway arches at King’s Cross for the legendary warehouse parties. Younger people turned off Wharf Road, which joined York Way north of the canal, into the area they knew as ‘Club City’.
Bagley’s was the nightclub that started and underpinned the area’s nightlife for fifteen to twenty years. It occupied the warehouse at the southern end of the Eastern Coal Drops and four arches under Wharf Road. The owners, Johnny and Billy Reilly, invested heavily in soundproofing and engaged with the residential community to respond to the inevitable complaints. These could be many and varied: Camley Street Natural Park was concerned that the rhythmic thumping was disturbing the mating of amphibians.
Bagley’s, which later became Canvas, hosted several clubs on a regular basis, one such being TDK (Fabio Venni). Another was The Church, initially a gathering point for Aussies but increasingly attracting Londoners, which became infamous for antipodean high jinks and drunken revelry, including strippers, on a Sunday afternoon. Its motto was: ‘If you haven’t sinned, you can’t be forgiven.’
The spaces that were once filled with revellers finally fell silent during Christmas 2007, when The Cross, The Key and Canvas were shut, leaving London bereft of the semi-derelict quarter that fostered some of the finest warehouse parties in the capital since the mid-1980s.