Development begins on Lewisham venue Sister Midnight, plans autumn completion

Construction is now underway on Lewisham’s first-ever community-owned venue, Sister Midnight, which has faced a series of hurdles in its opening over recent years.

It comes almost three years after the team behind the not-for-profit music space secured a seven-year lease of the former Brookdale Club, a disused working men’s club in the heart of Catford, Lewisham, following a campaign to take over the freehold.

Several years prior, in 2021, the team raised £260,000 through community investment and donations to acquire the former Lewisham pub, The Ravensbourne Arms, but were outbid. They later criticised developers of the pub, who planned to transform the ground floor into a block of flats, saying its development would “erase any chance of the Ravensbourne being brought back into community use as a pub.”

Support Your Local Club: Shop the Mixmag range here

Now, renovations have begun on the Brookdale Club after securing “vital funding”, with a new projected completion in autumn 2026 – almost three years after it was originally due to open in late 2023.

Contractors are currently working to repair the 150-year-old venue’s roof, with necessary replacements underway for part of the ceiling.

Once completed, the venue is set to feature a private outdoor garden, a 250-capacity grassroots live music space, a community café, space for rehearsals, recording, artist studios on the upper floors, and more.

Sister Midnight also promises to be a “democratically run” space, where profits are reinvested into the venue. Several fundraisers are due to be announced soon, such as club nights and live shows, to continue funding renovations.

Read this next: Sister Midnight, Lewisham’s first community-owned venue, launches a radio station

The venue’s radio counterpart, Sister Midnight FM, has also launched a fresh programme for 2026 featuring the likes of Tara Lily, Emma Warren, Donut Jam, Maxwell Owin, and more, broadcasting every Tuesday to Thursday.

The station will also debut a new series of “signature” broadcast live sessions, each one-hour long, combining “live performance with conversation to create an intimate, shared moment between artists, listeners, and the wider community.”

Find out more about Sister Midnight here.

Gemma Ross is Mixmag's Associate Digital Editor, follow her on X