Angels

Angels was a nightclub and music venue in Burnley, Lancashire, built into part of a multi-storey car park on Curzon Street. It opened in June 1974, with the official launch fronted by television dance troupe Pan's People alongside the Mayor of Burnley, and for its first fifteen years or so it ran as a mainstream disco and jazz-funk venue, known locally for its chrome fittings, strict dress code and lively dancefloor.

The club's character changed markedly from the late 1980s. DJ Paul Taylor, who had started out as a teenage jock at the venue in 1974, bought Angels with business partner Steve Farkas and began steering the music policy towards house. In 1989 Taylor set aside the final hour of Friday nights to play older, underplayed records rather than the newest releases, a format that grew into the monthly Retro night and eventually a wider club brand that toured venues across the North West and beyond.

Through the early 1990s Angels became one of the venues most associated with the house and rave scene in the north of England, with a capacity of around 1,200 and queues that reportedly stretched well beyond the club doors. Alongside resident DJs such as Paul Taylor, DJ Welly, Rick B and Paul Walker, the club hosted touring names including Carl Cox, Sasha, Paul Oakenfold and Pete Tong, and in 1992 it featured in the first episode of the late-night television dance show BPM, with Dave Seaman filmed DJing there.

Angels' rise coincided with the building's decline: the concrete car park structure it sat beneath, despite being only around twenty years old, had developed serious structural defects. The landowners, Great Portland Estates and Burnley Council, concluded that demolition and redevelopment of the site was the only viable option, and the club closed its doors on 27 April 1996. A successor venue called Heaven briefly operated on the same site before the building was demolished in 1999.

The Curzon Street site is now occupied by retail units, including Primark and Next stores, with no trace of the original club remaining. Its influence has lived on chiefly through Paul Taylor's Retro brand and through periodic reunion events in Burnley, which continue to draw former regulars keen to revisit the club's house and rave-era heyday.