{"id":861616,"date":"2026-03-31T02:16:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T02:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/861616\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:16:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T02:16:21","slug":"life-inside-merseysides-oldest-swingers-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/861616\/","title":{"rendered":"Life inside Merseyside’s oldest swingers club"},"content":{"rendered":"

The venue is set for a major change\"liverpoolecho\"<\/p>\n

Danny Gutmann<\/strong><\/p>\n

19:30, 30 Mar 2026<\/p>\n

\"Vicky<\/p>\n

Vicky and Jim have been running the club since 2014(Image: Supplied\/Vicky Finney)<\/p>\n

The owner of Merseyside’s oldest swingers club has given an insight at what life is like running the venue. Vicky Finney said she had never planned to run her own swingers club, but after 12 years at the helm of Townhouse in Tranmere, she said her and husband, Jim, will be stepping back and handing the reins to Sarah and Andy who have been working in the club for years.<\/p>\n

Townhouse is widely thought to be Merseyside’s first official swingers club, opening its doors at 9 Union Street venue in 2005. Having been a regular visitor to the club during its early years, and a barmaid afterwards, Vicky jumped at the opportunity to take over the club in 2014 alongside her husband.<\/p>\n

The 50-year-old told the ECHO<\/a>: “When the opportunity came up to buy it, I was like, ‘well I’ve been running the gaff anyway for a little while, let’s give it a go’. And that was it, we took over and never looked back.”<\/p>\n

While she has enjoyed her time operating the club, it was not something she had ever planned to do.<\/p>\n

Vicky said: “Who ever grows up thinking, ‘you know what, I really want to run a swingers club and a BDSM [Bondage, Discipline, Dominance, Submission, Sadism and Masochism] club?’ Nobody. So these things tend to just happen.”<\/p>\n

\"Townhouse<\/p>\n

Townhouse Swingers club first opened in 2005(Image: Supplied\/Vicky Finney)<\/p>\n

In that time, Vicky said she has had to deal with discrimination and misconceptions as well as the significant costs of running the business. She added: “Running any business at the moment especially, is pretty difficult. I’ve seen it get more difficult over the years.<\/p>\n

“I think running a business at any point, any type of business right now is just tough. And the adult industry is really hard. We’re legal, above board, licensed, we always have been.<\/p>\n

“But despite that, there’s lots of barriers in the way and it’s been tough fighting against that discrimination really. Things like your insurance, it’s ridiculous. It went up 333% after COVID. It went from like 300 quid to 1,300 quid a month.<\/p>\n

“And things like getting mortgages, mobile phone contracts. As soon as you say adult industry, they don’t want to know. Or lots of zeros get put on top of the cost. Just little things like that which people don’t think about that makes it hard.”<\/p>\n

\"Townhouse<\/p>\n

Vicky originally worked behind the bar before taking over ownership(Image: Supplied\/Vicky Finney)<\/p>\n

However, it’s not just been the costs of running the business that have been a challenge over the years, Vicky said that they have also had to contend with the public’s negative perception of the industry.<\/p>\n

She said: “I think people have a preconceived idea of the sort of person you are to run a venue like this. What kind of slutty person chooses to run a venue like this?<\/p>\n

“I think everyone just sees the sex and the sleaze rather than the community and the good that we do. It’s much more than just a swingers and BDSM club. But people just don’t really want to see that and hear that, they just want to see Vic the dominatrix who runs that seedy sex club in Birkenhead<\/a> and they don’t want to know any more than that.”<\/p>\n

While running the business has come with a lot of challenges, she said they have always been able to rely on their close knit community.<\/p>\n

She said: “When the going gets tough, it’s our community that’s kept us going really, especially from our LGBTQ+ community. There’s not tons of places on Merseyside where they can go and feel safe.<\/p>\n

“Don’t get me wrong, we’ve got gay town in Liverpool which is ace, but there’s a lot of hetero people that go and stag and hen nights, and some of our LGBTQ+ guys just don’t really want to go, so they come to us.<\/p>\n

“So it was the community that kept us going through all of that. And so when the going’s got tough and I’m like ‘it shouldn’t be this hard’, it’s the guys that have kept me going. It’s been a privilege because we were one of the very first clubs out there, there’s lots of clubs out there now, and we’re very well respected.<\/p>\n

“People think highly of us, and it took a while to gain that trust and reputation on the scene, so now that we’re there, it feels like a real honour.”<\/p>\n

\"Townhouse<\/p>\n

Inside Townhouse Swingers club(Image: Supplied\/Vicky Finney)<\/p>\n

As she looks back on her time running the club, Vicky said: “I think legacy is a big big word and I don’t want to seem big-headed saying that, but I feel like we are leaving a legacy behind which is now going to continue on and I always said that Jim and I were caretakers of Townhouse and one day we would pass on the responsibility because Townhouse will never go, it’ll just change.”<\/p>\n

Despite stepping away from the day to day running of the club, her attentions have now turned to her podcast, the Padded Cell, as well as remaining as the landlord of the venue.<\/p>\n

While she is sad to wave goodbye to running the club, she said that she is pleased to finally be able to use the club again as a customer, the same way that she used to all those years ago when she first started visiting. She said: “I am going to be going back to the club as a customer. I won’t be leaving the scene at all.<\/p>\n

“I’m a dominatrix, I have been for 20 years, so I’ll probably be enjoying that side of things more, putting the leather dress on and being a bit mean again.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The venue is set for a major change Danny Gutmann 19:30, 30 Mar 2026 Vicky and Jim have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":861617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8815],"tags":[748,393,4884,14721,179,11653,68691,16,15],"class_list":["post-861616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-liverpool","tag-britain","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-lgbtqia","tag-liverpool","tag-premium","tag-tranmere","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116321385984688784","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=861616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/861617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}