Indian Queens

Indian Queens (Cornish: Myghternes Eyndek[1]) is a village in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The village is situated west of Goss Moor and north of Fraddon approximately ten miles (16 km) west-southwest of Bodmin.[2] It is in the civil parish of St Enoder

For other uses, see Indian Queens (disambiguation).

Indian Queens

Stone porch from the original pub bearing the name The Indian Queen
Indian Queens
Location within Cornwall
Population500-600 
OS grid referenceSW917588
Civil parish
Unitary authority
Ceremonial county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townST. COLUMB
Postcode districtTR9
Dialling code01726
PoliceDevon and Cornwall
FireCornwall
AmbulanceSouth Western
UK Parliament

It is home to a primary school and a recreational park for children.

The A30 trunk road ran through the village until the construction of a bypass in the 1990s. Black Cross is a nearby hamlet.

The village is the site of a Victorian era preaching pit constructed out of a disused quarry: the pit comprises large stepped rings and a preaching area the size and shape of half a bandstand.

Who was the Indian Queen?
Pocahontas Crescent; street sign at Indian Queens, close to the site of the inn[3]

A number of stories try to explain who the Indian Queen was. Each version agrees that the name comes from the name of a coach/post house or inn. The name cannot be traced earlier than the 19th century. The inn was built on a plot of land known as White Splat in the late 18th century. The Indian Queen Inn stood beside the road leading from Goss Moor to Fraddon, just below the top of the hill. The pub had a small porch and displayed as a sign the portrait of an Indian queen. An inscription on the porch told the story of a Portuguese princess who landed at Falmouth in packet days, and slept one night at this inn on her way to London. Her swarthy appearance gave onlookers the impression that she was an Indian.

It has also been suggested that the royal lady was Pocahontas (1595–1617), an American Indian who was the younger daughter of Powhatan, chief of the Indian tribes who lived along the Virginia coast. There is very little evidence to support this story; nevertheless, it is still commonly given as the origin of the name. Pocahontas's name has been given to a modern street in Indian Queens known as Pocahontas Crescent.

Up to April 1780, the inn had the name "The Queen's Head". Sometime thereafter, and definitely by 1787, it had become "The Indian Queen". It seems that the name became "The Indian Queens" around the end of the 18th century. The signboard displayed an American Indian on one side and Victoria as Queen of India on the other. (Queen Victoria reigned 1837–1901; from 1877 she was Empress of India.[4]) On the Ordnance Survey map of Cornwall, 1868-1896, the village is marked as "Indian Queen" and the inn is the "Indian Queen Hotel".[3] The pub was demolished in the 1960s and its old signboard resides in the Truro Museum. In 2009 the old stone lintel from the pub reappeared on a house in Indian Queens not far from the site of the original pub. It bears the inscription
"THE INDIAN QUEEN
LICENSED BREWER AND RETAILER OF BEER, CYDER, WINE, AND TOBACCO.
LICENSED to the POST HORSES"

Musical associations

On his 2001 CD The Convincer, Nick Lowe wrote and sang a song called "Indian Queens", about a drifter who yearns to return there after a lifetime of travelling.

  • Black Cross
  • An early Christian memorial stone in St Francis churchyard; the church is a chapel-of-ease in the parish of St Enoder of the Diocese of Truro
  • The industrial workshops (formerly a school)
gollark: Indeed.
gollark: I'm just rewriting it myself.
gollark: So it won't work.
gollark: However, Kit never actually adds proper interfaces to the Discord stuff.
gollark: Oh, the bridge operates on an internal message structure.

References
  1. "Cornish Place Names". www.cornishplacenames.co.uk.
  2. Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 200 Newquay & Bodmin ISBN 978-0-319-22938-5
  3. "OS Map name 040/SE". Map of Cornwall. Southampton. 1868–1896. Retrieved 20 July 2020 – via British History Online.CS1 maint: date format (link)
  4. "BBC - Radio 4 - This Sceptred Isle - Empress of India". www.bbc.co.uk.

Sources
  • Noall, Cyril (1966) A History of Cornish Mail- and Stage-Coaches. Truro: D. Bradford Barton ISBN 0-85153-056-7
  • Douch, H. L. (1966) Old Cornish Inns and their place in the social history of the County. Truro: D. Bradford Barton
  • Vigurs, C. C. (article in) Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries; No. 416

Media related to Indian Queens at Wikimedia Commons

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.