Enzos Nightclub in Salisbury – what a club!

I was looking through some old clubbing photos recently from “back in the day” and came across a load from Enzos. If you don’t remember Enzos or never went, let me tell you, this was probably one of, if not the best underground nightclubs I’ve ever known. However, like most good things it came to an end. Unfortunately it closed in 2003.

Situated just outside Salisbury in a place called Amesbury, the club was attached to the side of a hotel called the Highpost. Driving to the place was always a mission as it was out in the sticks, but this was always made a little bit easier by the search light that would strobe into the sky from outside the venue. It was a little bit like Batman’s clarion call, if you remember that! Unfortunately this didn’t help the drive home, but that’s another story.

The main room was a dark and dingy affair, as most alternative and underground venues should be, but the second room was a little more posh with nice sofas and red drapes. One of the highlights of the second room was the patio-style windows that let you look into the indoor swimming pool of the adjoining hotel.

Many evenings there we often wished we could go into the pool, but alas this never happened. Although I never saw hotel visitors in the pool whilst clubbing, some of my mates swore that on occasions they had. I’m not quite sure if this is true, but if it was then I dread to think what an unsuspecting hotel resident would have thought of seeing us all on the dancefloor.

Another aspect to the club I remember fondly was the small water arrangement at the front door. Was it a pond, was it a fountain, or was it a bird bath… I’m not really sure but do recollect a few people going arse-down into it.

I’ve tried to remember all the DJs that I saw there, and two particularly stand out purely because their music informed the early days of my hard house clubbing days. Firstly Rachel Auburn, one of the original Tidy Girls, but above all a great producer of early style hardbag hard house. Apparently she’s a yoga teacher nowadays and ended up selling all her vinyl on eBay. Great shame as I would love to see her play again.

The other act of note was the legendary Jon Bell aka Captain Tinrib. It was music on the Tinrib label I first heard at an outdoor rave in the New Forest in late 1999 or early 2000 – which in turn made go and find hard house music. I’ll write about that experience another day.

But to summarise, Enzos was a very special club and I miss the old days we had there. If only there were clubs like this nowadays.