The exact history of the club is hard to find, however much can be learned through the photos and videos taken by urban explorers and word of mouth from those who came to have a good time before it's closing many years ago.
Circus Circus opened on Spencer Street in the 1990s and was a great place to go for some good drinks. Despite it's childlike colorful walls purple, yellow, and white walls, the club was a place for 18+ people (25+ on Wednesdays) to get a drink, dance, and socialize to the music of the era.
Upon entering, you'd climb a flight of stairs to a room decorated like a small circus tent, cloth hung from the roof at an angle to help sell the idea as you came up to a desk to be ID'd and pay the two pound entry fee. Posters of many different rock groups hung layered across the walls alongside some from "The Simpsons" and what seemed to be Styrofoam statues of merry go-round horses and men wearing dunce caps stuck to the walls. A large bar took up a good third of the roam while the rest was filled with mostly booths for young adults to congregate in. A second smaller bar believed to be known as "Big Willy's bar" also existed on the opposite side of the room from the first though many who visited the bar in their youth have little recollection of it. A very small dance floor also existed next to a DJ booth.
Unfortunately after seeing a high level of popularity in the 90s, club culture started to fall dramatically and Circus Circus was very much a victim of this. Unsure how to respond and adapt to the modernizing trends, operations ceased in the Christmas season of 2005. Some Christmas decorations still hung over the bar until a fire unexpectedly broke out in September of 2021. The current conditions of the building's interior are unknown.
Plans were approved back in 2010 for a seven-story office building known as Trinity Tower to be built on the lot, even going as far as hanging a banner asking for those interested in buying or renting the building to call, but despite word still being that it the development is coming, no progress has been made in the 12 years since.
For now, the once bustling circus-themed nightclub sits quiet and charred, waiting to be given some form of new life as a remnant of a past too far gone.
If you liked this and are interested in learning more about abandoned structures in Hull, I recently wrote about the Carlton Theatre on Anlaby Road. Check it out!
Dakota Morrill
- Padoo Homes
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