The Coronet

The Coronet was a large live music and club venue in Elephant and Castle, south London, best known to clubbers for its Art Deco interior, late licence and a 2,600 capacity spread across three floors. The building itself had a much longer history than its nightlife years suggest, having started out as the Elephant and Castle Theatre, which opened on 31 May 1879 to a design by the theatre architect Frank Matcham.

The venue spent most of the twentieth century as a cinema. It was rebuilt in Art Deco style and reopened as an ABC picture house in 1932, later becoming the Coronet Cinema in 1981 before closing its doors to film in 1999, leaving Elephant and Castle without a cinema. In 2002 theatre producer Dominic Madden bought the derelict building and restored much of its original Art-Deco character, stripping out the cinema fit-out and reinstating the upper gallery. It reopened in 2003 as The Coronet Theatre, a flexible space for live music, club nights, conferences and film screenings.

Once established as a nightlife venue, The Coronet became a fixture for promoters needing a big room with atmosphere. Resident Advisor noted that it had hosted parties from the likes of Secretsundaze, SuperMartXe, Circo Loco and Modular Recordings, alongside live sets from acts such as Alicia Keys and The Wombats. It was also a long-running home for drum & bass and jungle, hosting Jungle Mania nights with regulars including Nicky Blackmarket, Steven Cee, DJ Majesty and The Ragga Twins, and in 2016 staged a more leftfield booking when Jeff Mills performed a live soundtrack to Fritz Lang's Woman in the Moon.

Within London's club map, The Coronet occupied a useful niche: a sizeable, characterful room south of the river with a late licence, used as much for one-off raves and squat parties as for established club brands, including an unlicensed rave held in the building shortly before its final closure. The venue closed permanently on 1 January 2018 after an all-night farewell party, as the wider Elephant and Castle area was redeveloped around the shopping centre site. The building stood empty until demolition began in December 2020, continuing into 2021, with the site absorbed into the new shopping centre and town centre scheme replacing the old Elephant and Castle precinct.