MOTHER JACKS MOLLY HOUSE
To all ye who cometh here to this fine queer locale wishin' to take a load off of thy burd'nd hearts, welcome! Help thyselves. to a warm, wee pint a' ale and enjoyeth the festivities within Mother Jacks Molly House..
Molly houses were locations where, in the 18th and early 19th centuries, mollies, or queer men, met for companionship and sex. They could be in pubs and taverns, inns or coffee houses. There are descriptions from eighteenth-century sources of elaborate outfits, mock marriages in an area of the Molly House known as The Chapel and even mock births in which a molly would deliver a wooden doll that was then baptised.
Molly houses were a space where gay histories and trans histories intermingle. It was common for men at the molly house to wear women's clothes and to speak and act in typically 'feminine' ways. Most had alternative names such as Plump Nelly, Primrose Mary, Aunt May, Susan Guzzle, Aunt England, and the Duchess of Camomile.
While an established molly-house such as Mother Clap’s Molly House served as many as forty people on any given night and provided a back room for more illicit activities, a molly-house could be as informal as someone’s private room in an otherwise “straight” public house.
So, imagine it's 1725 and you are off to Mother Jacks Molly House for an evening of gay abandon with music, country dances and live song by Medusa Has Been and Keziah Hodgson! Feel Free to dress in your finest 18th century wigs, pantaloons and frocks, we will be!