Famous London live music venue, the Marquee Club, is to relocate to Leicester Square, taking the place of the former Home nightclub.

Located above MTV’s new studio, The Marquee will cover three floors and total 15,000sq ft.

Nearly £1m will be spent on the venue, which will follow The Marquee Club brand and trademark recently purchased by Irish music entrepreneur Nathan Lowry.

From its initial incarnation, a jazz club on Oxford Street founded by Harold Pendleton in 1958, The Marquee Club witnessed a number of seminal live performances throughout the 1960s and 1970s from bands such as The Rolling Stones, The Sex Pistols, Jimi Hendrix, The Who and The Small Faces.

Moving to Charing Cross Road in 1988, The Marquee Club closed in 1996 before briefly reopening in a shopping centre in Islington in 2002, closing again and being placed in administration and put up for sale in January 2003.

Lowry aims to restore the reputation of The Marquee Club as the first choice live music venue in the UK.

Having spent 18 months searching for the right mid-sized venue in central London, Lowry believes he’s found the perfect site in Leicester Square.

He will be joined by Plum Promotions, who have been hired as live co-ordinators for the new venue and will be equally as committed to nurturing grassroots talent as to established, big name bands.

Lowry said: “I see this not as a reopening but as a rescuing of a live music institution. I believe this venue can be great again, revived by giving people what they want – great live music.”

Alan North, MD of Plum Promotions, added: “All that is best about British music in the last 40 years has sprung from the live circuit. This is a fantastic opportunity to bring that tradition back to the heart of London where it belongs.

“We’re looking forward to working in a venue with real integrity – one that is as independent and original as the music it will champion.”

The Marquee Club is currently scheduled to open in the autumn with a week-long festival and what is billed as the largest exhibition of Jimi Hendrix memorabilia in the world.

The exhibition will feature around 40,000 items including 2,000 hours of video footage – of which 60 per cent is unseen and includes footage from both Woodstock and the Isle of Wight festival – around 3,000 LPs, 47 personal reels and three original guitars.