Race to save music venue up for sale for £900,000

A campaign has been launched to save a long-standing music venue which is due to be sold at auction.

Fiddlers Club, in south Bristol, first opened as a venue in 1994 and has hosted artists including George Ezra, KT Tunstall and Billy Bragg.

However, it is no longer trading and is set to be sold at auction on 17 June with a guide price of £900,000.

Community interest company Bedminster Works and arts charity Artspace Lifespace have now teamed up to try to secure donations to buy Fiddlers Club and reopen it as a community space.

"This is far too important to lose without a fight," said James Perrott, director of Bedminster Works.

The campaign group hopes to prevent the building going to auction by negotiating an agreement directly with the building's owners.

It wants to stop the site from being sold to developers by securing a short-term lease while working towards a long-term community purchase, which it would fund through donations and investments.

Perrott said independent venues were "disappearing at an alarming rate" and added that south Bristol had "already lost too many places that bring people together".

In the listing, the Cleary family, who bought the building in 1994, said it was "time to pass on the bow".

"The family think it is time to thank all the customers and promoters for contributing to the success and are very grateful for introducing Bristol to an incredible range of music styles," they said.

"So, it is now time to be the other side of the bar."

The venue is being marketed by auctioneers Hollis Morgan, which said the building was rumoured to be an 18th Century prison and was used as a malting house for a local brewery before it became the Courage's Social Club in the 1980s.

It also appeared in episodes of hit sitcom Only Fools and Horses, much of which was filmed in and around Bristol.

Olly Hollis, director of Hollis Morgan, said the building's future would likely involve redevelopment, although its next chapter remains uncertain.

"If walls could talk," he said. "The history of this building is fascinating, but we are now focused on promoting its future."

Concertgoer Russ Yewdall said seeing jazz bassist Stanley Clarke perform at Fiddlers in 2018 was "surreal".

"He rarely plays the UK and when he does it's usually much bigger venues in London, so seeing someone of that stature perform in such an intimate Bristol venue felt incredibly special," he said.

"The sound was amazing and the atmosphere was perfect."

The Music Venue Trust said grassroots venues hosted more than 78% of live gigs in the UK, with Bristol having one of the highest concentrations of musicians.

However, half of the city's venues face ongoing pressure, according to Bristol City Council.

Kathryn Chiswell-Jones, chief executive of Artspace Lifespace, said grassroots venues were "essential cultural infrastructure".

"They are the places where artists develop, communities gather and cities build their identity," she said.

She cited Fiddlers as an opportunity "to secure an important part of Bristol's music heritage while creating a sustainable creative and community space for the future".

"Time is incredibly short and we urgently need support, partnerships and conversations to help make this possible," she added.

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