The tide of gentrification sweeping Britain’s capital has resulted in several casualties for London nightlife over the years.

The latest is The Elephant & Castle pub. Located in the South London area of the same name, the pub is due to be turned into a turned into a Foxtons estate agents.

The pub isn’t really a current concern for London’s clubbers, who would be more likely to visit Corsica Studios or Ministry of Sound nearby, but it does have a unique place in dance music history – as Mixmag has pointed out, it’s held by some to be the birthplace of UK garage.

The pub’s story was told by RBMA last year, when Stephen Titmus spoke to UK garage godfather Matt Jam Lamont about the Happy Days night that ran there in the 1990s. It was here that Lamont says he played The Jam Experience’s 1991 track ‘Feel My Love’, a track that combined US garage’s signature drums and cut up vocals with a heavy UK-friendly bassline.

“When I played it at The Elephant & Castle, that was it, the track shook the windows. The owner of the pub ran up to me and was suddenly telling me to turn the bass down. That was the first ever British garage record,” Lamont said.

It’s another blow for London’s club culture – Plastic People and Madame Jojo’s are just two of the venues to close in the capital over the last year. [via Mixmag]