This tour will take place in person.
The archive started in 2016 with the records of numerous male UK leather clubs and has since expanded to hold the collections of all sexualities, gender identities, and kink persuasions. The archive also holds an extensive collection of books, pamphlets, and magazines documenting UK fetish history from the early 1900s to the present day. Join this tour to find out more about the archive and the stories it holds.
Explore the different collections we hold in the UK Leather and Fetish Archive through our Archives.
Who is this tour for?
Anyone with an interest in the history and heritage of the leather, rubber, kink, BDSM, and fetish community in the UK.
Practical information
- This tour goes down into our archive store, and we regret that this tour is not accessible to anyone who uses a wheelchair or who is unable to use steps or stairs.
How we’re keeping you safe
April 2022 update: Keeping you safe and healthy is our number one priority.
If you test positive for Covid-19 or are asked to isolate and are not able to attend your class or pre-booked event, please contact the Bishopsgate Box Office for further information (enquiries@bishopsgate.org.uk). Please do not come to the Institute in person if you have symptoms or have tested positive.
Wearing a face mask is no longer compulsory but we ask you to consider others when in our building and especially when spending time in crowded and enclosed spaces where you come into contact with people you don’t normally meet. You will see many of our staff and volunteers continuing to wear face masks and we are keeping the perspex screens at our reception desks.
Bishopsgate Institute has strict cleaning protocols in place and ventilation throughout the building. There are hand-sanitising stations available throughout the building and touch-free drinking fountains. Find out more about how we’re keeping you safe.
Image: Gay News Photographic Archive
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Meet the Host
Stefan Dickers
Stef is the Special Collections and Archives Manager at Bishopsgate Institute and has been responsible for the development of the Institute's collections on the history of London, protest and activism, and LGBTQ+ Britain. He qualified as an archivist in 2001 and started at Bishopsgate in 2005.
Previous to this, Stef worked in the archives of the London School of Economics and Senate House Library. He will talk at extraordinary length about the collections whenever asked and regularly entertains groups of students, groups and family/local history societies on the wonders they can find in the Special Collections and Archives at the Institute.
