New photobook filled with portraits of people at the Haçienda out soon

New photobook Original Ravers compiles 51 previously unseen portraits of people inside the legendary Manchester club, The Haçienda. 

The new photobook from Peter Walsh is the second release from the British Culture Archive, following the publication of Not Going Home, a book by Mischa Haller that showcased the lives of ravers after the clubs had closed in the early hours of the morning. 

Previously unseen and unpublished, according to the British Culture Archive, the portraits of the clubbers were taken on what many thought would be the last weekend of the club, prior to its 1991 closure.

Walsh said: “Paul Cons, the entertainment manager, rang to say The Haçienda was closing. It was a shock… I knew how central the club was to Manchester and far beyond. I asked to photograph the final nights and got the OK to set up a studio in the basement via the Gay Traitor bar. I found space among old props and barrels, hung a cloth backdrop, and aimed for stark black-and-white portraits - this was 1991, pre-digital photography. 

“On the last Friday and Saturday, I set up early, waited for peak time, and - with my assistant Leslie pulling dancers off the floor - photographed whoever came down, many still in coats in the January cold. Four days later, at the press conference on 30th January 1991 with Paul Cons and Tony Wilson, the immediate closure was confirmed. None of us knew if the club would ever reopen.”

On the British Culture Archive’s website, about the book, it comments on how “The arrival of ecstasy and the rise of club culture broke down barriers of race, class, and sexual orientation, uniting a generation during a period of political turbulence. 

“The fashion - loose, baggy, and unpretentious - was designed for freedom of movement, a stark contrast to the strict dress codes of 1980s nightclubs. At The Haçienda, anything went. It was about the music, the atmosphere, and the shared experience of like-minded people.” 

The book will be published on 23rd September 2025. 

​Preorder the book here. 

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Header image credit: Peter Walsh / British Culture Archive