Liverpool 8 was once home to around 40 night clubs, social clubs and shebeens which were community and social spaces as well as after-hours drinking places.

These venues played a huge role in the city's entertainment scene and cultural history from the 1940s onwards and attracted a raft of famous names over the years.

The clubs have nearly all closed or been knocked down, leaving Liverpool 8 without a single night club.

But the story of how the clubs of L8 came about - and how they ended up closing down - is a fascinating part of our city's history.

(Image: Derek Stephens)

"We can't get in clubs in town because of the colour of our skin, so we might as well do it here"

The development of Liverpool 8's nightclubs emerged from the racism in Liverpool in the 1930s, which meant that most black people in the area would avoid city-centre clubs.

Ray Quarless, director of the Heritage Development Company Liverpool, told the ECHO : "It was basically a no-go area. There was just so much racism, so people set up their own clubs, and the Palm Cove on Smithdown Lane was the first."

"There was an intuitiveness of people who felt 'we can't get in clubs in town' because of the colour of their skin, so 'we might as well do it here'.

(Image: Ray Quarless/ Heritage Development Company Liverpool)

"Why go into town and be faced with racism when you can have entertainment and security here - that's the way it was for many years.

"Before the night clubs there were unlicensed drinking clubs, and before that shebeens emerged out of the black community."

The first licensed club in the area, known as the Palm Cove, was situated at 237 Smithdown Lane and was opened by Roy Stephens.

Ray said: "Roy Stephens came from Jamaica in the late 1940s to do his National Service. He came over from Jamaica and stayed with his brother Ken in his house in Kensington.

"Roy did his national service and then his brother Owen came over and they all lived there together.

(Image: Derek Stephens)

"Two years later Roy opened the Palm Cove and it became a beacon of entertainment for the next 30 to 40 years.

"It was a place where the Liverpool black community as well as white people from the North End and other areas would come as that's where you could get a drink after hours.

"With his brothers, Roy formed The Caribbeans, who were the resident band at Palm Cove."

"Liverpool was a haven"

Over the years, huge names in music and culture would drink at the club, including Nat King Cole in 1963, Dizzie Gillespie in 1967 and Coleman Hawkins.

Ray said: "That's the reputation this place had, and when you have artists of some standing saying 'let's go to the Palm Cove' then you did - its reputation was ubiquitous."

"Jokers on Edge Lane opened in the 1950s and this was also where all the entertainers would go, including celebrities such as Max Bygraves, Bruce Forsyth and Ian St John - the celebs of the day.

(Image: Andrew Teebay/Liverpool Echo)

"The other side of the clubs were the places such as the African clubs, which also provided welfare support and services, for example the Ghanaian and Nigerian Clubs where people were supported with welfare, immigration and finding a place to stay.

"The Nigerian club still provides a lunch club for black elders to this day."

He added: "When you take into account places like that it's not just music and drink - it was about support as well as entertainment and it comes about as a result of the difficulties people were confronted with on arrival or settling.

"You've also got an economic space -employment for people serving drinks, working in the bar, cleaning up, maintaining, managing and running the places.

"Couple that with GIs in WW2 - there were many in the RAF from the Caribbean and they were based at the American base at Burtonwood.

"They came to Liverpool at the weekends, and brought a different approach to culture, a new way of talking. They brought chocolate, music, cigarettes and stockings.

"When they came to Liverpool they couldn't believe it because what happened on the American air base was segregation so in comparison Liverpool was a haven."

Demise in the 1970s and 1980s

Over the following decades, the night clubs of Liverpool 8 continued to grow, until in its heyday there were 40 different clubs within a two mile radius.

Ray said: "The demise started in the late 1970s and 1980s. There were still quite a lot of clubs around then."

When the Caribbean Centre closed its doors in 2013 it marked the end of the clubs of Liverpool 8, as many had been either demolished or eventually repurposed.

Telling the stories that matter to Liverpool Stories matter - and the ECHO has told more of Liverpool's stories than anyone else. Since 1877 we have given voice to people in our city and Merseyside as a whole. We've celebrated the best of our communities - and been there during their darkest times too. Liverpool is changing, but the true fabric of our city is its people. We want to tell more of their stories - but we need you. Share the issues YOU think we should be telling - from triumphs which show Liverpool at its best to problems that need sorting out. Let us know what you'd like to see us look in to by emailing us a news@liverpool.com, and help us keep telling the stories that make Liverpool

Some places have ended up as community centres in a new form, for example, the Kuumba Imani Centre on Princes Avenue, which occupies the site of the Nigerian Federal club and the Firefit on Windsor Street, which replaced the former Starliner/Talk of the Town club.

Last year, Heritage Development Company Liverpool held an exhibition about Liverpool 8's clubs called Black to the Future at city centre locations including Liverpool Central Library.

The story Ray tells of the night club scene in Liverpool 8 and the surrounding area during the mid to late 20th century has been pieced together largely through oral accounts from people around at the time.

Ray then cross-checked these oral accounts against other records, information that he brought together with colleagues at the Heritage Development Company Liverpool.

Follow L8 Community Reporter Lisa Rand on social media Follow Lisa on Twitter here You can read more of her stories here Email her on lisa.rand@reachplc.com Or contact Lisa on Facebook if you want to share any news, stories or updates. Keep up to date with the latest breaking news here Like the ECHO Facebook page and follow @livechonews on Twitter

He said: "You can start to see how the pages unfold and we can see how we arrived here and how the night clubs provided that social support as well as culture.

Show more

"When they demolished these clubs they were demolishing history and the legacy of them, eradicating them from the pages of popular and cultural history.

"Nobody has yet addressed the bigger picture that when they demolished these clubs they demolished pages of history."