It is due to go under the hammer later this month
Campaigners are racing against time to preserve the old Fiddlers nightclub as a music venue
Campaigners are desperately scrambling to save the old Fiddlers nightclub and music venue in Bedminster as another deadline looms.
The venue on Willway Street opened in 1994 and hosted internationally-renowned acts such as Robert Plant, K T Tunstall and George Ezra.
But it has been up for sale since late 2024 and is now due to go under the hammer at auction on July 22 with a guide price of £900,000.
The most likely scenario if Fiddlers is snapped up is for it to be converted into flats, or potentially even more student accommodation.
Now two community organisations — Artspace Lifespace and Bedminster Works — have joined forces to launch the Save Fiddlers campaign. They are trying to raise enough money to purchase the former club and keep it open as a venue for everyone to enjoy.
A number of internationally renowned acts have performed at the venue
Artspace Lifespace is a registered charity with a 20-year track record of transforming vacant spaces into hubs for creative groups and other community organisations. Its chief executive Kathryn Chiswell Jones said permanently losing yet another local venue in Bristol would be devastating.
“Every community needs its spaces, it needs its gathering spots, and you know we’re lucky in Bedminster that there is Windmill Hill City Farm, which is beautiful,” she said.
“We have lovely parks, but that central gathering spot that is for the community, every community should have some place like that, that is at the heart of where they go, for young people, for old people, and music to me is one of those really connecting forces.
“(At the moment) in Bristol to go to a nightclub, to go dancing with your friends you’re having to go into the city centre or beyond… and so losing such a brilliant resource in Bedminster, I think, would be a massive blow.”
Fiddlers, located in a prime position between East Street and Victoria Park, has been owned and operated by the Cleary family since 1994. They ran it as a nightclub and concert venue for thirty years before first putting it up for sale in late 2024.
The Fiddlers Club building was also used as a filming location for the Only Fools & Horses episode ‘Stage Fright’, in the beloved sitcom’s seventh series. The building had a colourful history from long before it became an entertainment venue, according to auctioneers Hollis Morgan.
George Ezra who started his career in Bristol and performed at the Fiddlers Club
“We understand the building was rumoured to be an 18th century prison and we are informed it was once a malting house for a local brewery and was converted into the Courage’s Social Club in circa 1982 and has been used thereafter as a nightclub with 6am licence for many years but is no longer trading and offered with vacant possession,” the property’s listing said.
The Fiddlers venue has been slated for auction at least twice already this year, so there’s a chance it will be granted another stay of execution before this month’s proposed sale. The people behind the campaign to save the club want to raise enough money to buy it directly from the owners, who Bristol Live understands would prefer for it to remain trading as a venue if possible, but time is running out.
“What we need now is big, bold, audacious… founders or philanthropists to come forward and not just say, ‘yeah we love grassroots art, we love live music, that’s how we started,’” Kathryn said.
“We need those people to come forward with money and actually protect these venues for the future by investing in them and investing in the communities that made their livelihoods possible.”