Put your rose-tinted specs down for a second.

Not every night spent in a drinking and dancing establishment was fun. The eye-stinging cigarette smoke, the eye-watering prices for warm, watery lager, the failed pulling attempts, the sticky floors, the zealous bouncers, the dodgy element lurking in the shadows, the stomach-churning loos and the naff music played at volumes to prevent conversation.

Yet still, we managed to put all this aside and have some of the best times of our lives. It's not where you are, it's who you're with, so the adage goes.

Read more: https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/history/lost-nightclubs-sheffield-60s-70s-23334710

It was where you made friends, met a future partner and tried things you may not otherwise have experienced.

Here is a collection of Huddersfield nightclubs and bars where we did all the above in our youth, whether it was the 1960s or the 2010s.

From the cool and edgy to the downright naff and tacky, you'll mostly have good memories of these long-gone places.

Adega

Huddersfield Nightclub Feature, Friday 1st February 1991. Adega
Adega in February 1991

This club underneath Byram Arcade, on Westgate, during the 1980s and early 1990s had a wine bar and bistro. It sounds weird now but clubs in the 1980s sometimes had restaurants as well as discotheques.

Adega hosted the Huddersfield Examiner's Search for a Star talent contest in 1986.

Calisto's

This club in St George's Square was known for its alternative rock and indie nights as well as the odd house night.

Yorkshire Shepherdess Amanda Owen mentions dancing there until dawn as a teenager in her book A Year in the Life of the Yorkshire Shepherdess.

It later became Bar-Club-None and then Session.

Catacombs

Waiting for the Catacombs club to open in Huddesfield

Huddersfield's answer to Liverpool's Cavern was Catacombs, a subterranean coffee bar on Southgate where in the 1960s, you could dance to beat hits and see the latest rock 'n' roll bands.

Its owner? A certain Johnny Marsden who went on to found Johnny's (see below) and the Huddersfield Hotel.

There's plenty more about Catacombs with lots of photos here.

Cleopatra's/Silver Sands

13 members of the Trinidad and Tobago Ladies Group of Huddersfield pictured at Silver Sands

Not to be confused with a strip joint of the same name on Kirkgate. This Venn Street venue was the place to catch the world's biggest reggae artists from Jamaica including Gregory Isaacs, Freddie McGregor, Owen Gray, Millie Small, John Holt and Frankie Paul.

The club began its life as the Empress Ballroom, then the New Theatre and then in 1967, The West Indian Social Club catering for the town's growing Black Caribbean community.

It became Cleopatra's in the 1970s and finally Silver Sands in the 1980s before it was demolished in 1992 to make way for a car park.

Eden

Video Loading

The club once known as Johnny's and before that, the Bull's Head pub was also once "Huddersfield's Premier Superclub" Eden.

Although it was yet another in a long line of clubs at this address it deserves a mention of its own.

Riding the superclub wave, which was all the rage from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, Eden featured big screens and bars on different levels.

It closed around 2015 and has had several incarnations since.

Flix

This club in a disused woollen warehouse on the edge of St George's Square had a cocktail bar and a restaurant.

The club, owned by DJ John Quinn, was later called Sunset Boulevard and Josephines.

Heaven & Hell

The Co-operative building used to house the Heaven and Hell nightclub
The Co-operative building used to house the Heaven and Hell nightclub

This 1990s club in the former Cooperative Building on the end of New Street had separate heaven and hell themed dance halls.

The building is currently being converted into student flats.

Johnny's

Video Loading

This club, owned by brothers Johnny and Joe Marsden, was Huddersfield's biggest and most famous nightclub.

Johnny's opened in the former Bulls Head pub in December 1969.

The club, on Beast Market, took off when it was granted a 2am licence and enjoyed success during the disco era of the 1970s and the electro era of the 1980s.

Johnny's continued into the 21st century until the brothers sold the club and several of their neighbouring entertainment venues to London and Edinburgh Inns for a substantial sum in 2003.

The club later became Eden (see above), Black Dog, Yankee Lounge and Xanadu's Niteklub.

Plaza

Plaza in 1991
Plaza in 1991

In the early 1990s this venue, in a converted church on Queen Street, was an integral part of the rave and clubbing scene.

It was best known for Hard Times which had outgrown its original Mirfield home and where coaches from around the North would rock up to see top US house DJs.

Starlight

This club on Kirkgate was known for its Tamla Motown and Northern Soul nights in the 1970s.

Tokyo

Tokyo, inside Huddersfield's long gone crown court, was popular with students on weekdays and non-students on weekends.

It became a crime hotspot in the last decade and closed in June 2019.

After a brief spell as The Courthouse it became the new, larger home of The Parish rock club and live music venue.

Visage and Ethos

Visage and Ethos back in the day

By the mid-1990s, everyone wanted a piece of the superclub pie and new, purpose-built clubs started appearing in unlikely places.

Visage and Ethos, which opened in 1994 on St Thomas' Road, outside the town centre, was one such club with masses of dancing space and a ridiculously flash lighting rig.

It is now a children's inflatable bouncing park.

Others names

Information about these places is scant so if you can fill in the gaps let us know.

  • Abraham's
  • Amsterdam Bar
  • Broadway
  • Changing Lights
  • Charlies
  • Coach House
  • Harvey's
  • Kings Club
  • Piggy's
  • Videotech

Enter your postcode to see what's happening where you live