For more than two decades, the Clerkenwell basement club – the first club in Britain to be granted a 24-hour music and dance licence – has delivered some of the capital's wildest clubbing nights, but now it has been forced to shut as the building's landlord wants to develop the site. And, in a final blow-out, it is holding a three-day Easter weekend "Last Dance" that began last night.

The vast dance haven has a colourful history of celebrity high-jinks, having hosted visits from Madonna, Bjork, Robbie Williams and Noel Gallagher. In the club's Nineties hey day it was even the location for a lavish birthday celebration for Michael Jackson.

It has also attracted some of the nation's top DJs, and this weekend is no exception as Fatboy Slim, the Chemical Brothers and Judge Jules are all taking to the decks. Also donning his headphones will be Tall Paul, the son of the club's late founder, John Newman.

Paul Newman and his brother, Danny, have been running the club since their father died in 2003, with Paul playing every week at the club's sell-out Gallery night. The house night has become legendary in London, so much so that when the venue closes this weekend the Gallery DJs will continue playing together at a new location.

Paul said: "Turnmills has been such a big part of so many people's lives in so many ways, and none more so than my brother and I. It's a sad weekend in many ways, but also exciting as well. It's a new era for the Gallery, down at the Ministry of Sound from the end of April for our 13th birthday. But this weekend is all about giving Turnmills the send-off it deserves."

When John Newman bought the site in the Eighties he rapidly turned it from a small wine bar into one of the country's leading superclubs. From 1989 it became famous for hosting some of London's most exciting nights and pioneered the all-night clubbing scene of the Nineties.

Tickets to the final three nights sold out months ago, and tributes to the club have poured on to the message boards on the Turnmills website. Shane Maher from Charlton branded it "an end of an era", adding: "I'm hoping to get my 40-year-old mates away from their wives for the last Gallery."

In its latter years the club has been mocked for its dingy furnishing and sticky floors, but it still has a hard core of followers. Eddie Hollis, 20, is in the next generation of clubbers who have flocked to the venue. He is attending both the Saturday and Sunday night Last Dances. "I've been going there since I started university a year and a half ago," said Mr Hollis. "It's probably my favourite club in London, so I'm pretty devastated – I normally go there several times a month."

Sister Bliss, the DJ and member of the band Faithless, has been a resident DJ at Turnmills for 15 years and was playing her final set there last night. Yesterday, she said the club would be sorely missed. "Turnmills has been so innovative on so many fronts," she said. "Because it's family run, it has that loving touch only a family can have, and it's hard to find a place with that much love and care and attention to what they do.

"It's always stayed one step ahead of the game with its music, DJs and ideas, and refused to pigeon-hole itself. I think that's why it has lasted longer than most, and I'm so very blessed to have been and remain involved."

When the last reveller staggers on to the street in the early hours of Monday morning, it will be a sad day for the London clubbing scene. But as the Newman brothers' Gallery night moves across to the Ministry of Sound next month, it seems clear that whatever happens, the dance will go on.