Monastery, Torquay
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[edit] Introduction
The Monastery was an underground dance music club on Torwood Gardens Road in Torquay. The venue itself was an actual converted 19th century church. It was unlicensed and sold only soft drinks, as well as water, milk, teas & coffees, ice lollies, glow sticks and white gloves. It was open from 12 midnight until 7am every Saturday night through to Sunday morning. Its unlicensed status also meant that the minimum age was only 17. The unique experience that the club offered meant that every week the place was extremely busy right through till 7am, even on a resident DJ night, with clubbers coming from as far as London and the North to be involved in The Monastery phenomenon.
[edit] The Monastery Experience
One of the defining features of the club was undoubtedly the incredible atmosphere. As a members only club with a tiny capacity - officially only for 500 members - it regularly doubled or even tripled this due to the sheer popularity of this legendary venue and its international DJ's. Entry queues would often reach to the end of the road, and demand to get into the club often meant that there was a 1 in 1 out entry policy. "The Mony" boasted an extremely loud and clear sound system, and a state of the art Martin Robo & Mac lighting rig controlled by lighting jock & resident mc AdReNaLiN. This was all built around a unique layout, which maximised the benefits that the acoustic structural design of the church offered. Multi-level dance platforms, a huge stage area and a large full size balcony that spanned round the entire venue all contributed to the Monastery experience. Upstairs was a good-sized chill-out room for 200, although the temperature and packed nature of this room often resulted in a less than chilled experience. The interior décor was made exclusively for the club on a monthly basis by Optical Verve, comprising of psychedelic UV decorations, banners and drapes.
[edit] The Music
The main reason people visited the club however, was due to its strictly underground music policy. Hard house, and later hard trance being the main choice. Big name DJ's such as: Billy Nasty, Judge Jules, The Tidy Boys, Lisa Lashes, Lisa Pin-up, Anne Savage (DJ), Paul Glazby, Lee Haslam, Andy Farley, Nick Sentience, BK(resident), Steve Thomas(resident). Rachael and Graham Eden, of shock! records (AKA The Brain Bashers) held longstanding residencies , local heroes such as Kev Walters, Ben McGowan, Matt Vinyl, 4 Play, Ben House, Chase, Moon and Deny have all held their own. Later in the club's life, legendary sets from Mark E.G and M-Zone characterised the shifting tastes in hard dance music and became one of the first clubs south of Bristol (along with The Country Club) to book the legendary hard trance duo Back in 2000.
[edit] The History
This church, situated in the Torwood Gardens, was built by Alfred Edersheim in 1862 and was opened on the 5th of April, 1863; the style is described as early Gothic, with Scottish features. (White, J. T. The history of Torquay. Torquay: Directory Co., 1878. p. 319) Since opening, The Monastery went from strength to strength, and the club never really needed to advertise as its members were in excess of 15000. Whilst its portrayal in the local media was often of a troubled night-spot, it received some excellent national PR: its website was reported on national TV as having more than 1 million hits in just one week, and was voted the 3rd best club in the 'world' by national tabloid The Independent Magazine. Surprisingly enough, despite the images that may spring to mind when thinking of an all night dance club, befitting the overall description, the club was in fact completely family run by the Lane & Harris family. The owner, Don, took charge of the overall operation, his wife Barbara took money at the door, and his daughter Sally Harris was the promoter. Before owning The Monastery Don and his family used to own 'The Old Bull and Bush" pub in London, made famous by its inclusion in the popular 'music hall' song from the late 1800'ss, "Down at the old Bull and Bush".
[edit] The Closure
It has been said that the all-night, soft drinks only venue's unbelievable financial success of the club was intertwined in some way or another, with, the illegal drug trade. To this day though, that remains debatable. Debatable or not - the club was closed due to a drug raid in November 2001; although the quantities of drugs actually found during the raid were negligible. Anecdotal evidence suggests the council and police held a strong grudge against the club, as somewhere that didn't provide the council revenue through licensing fees. Unfortunately, the building still (after being closed for more than 4 years) lies empty and unused as the council foolishly are refusing to grant any sort of entertainment license. According to Torquay local press The Herald Express, the building has been granted planning permission for 7 large "studio" apartments, due to commence early 2007.
