Indian Queens

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

There are 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, and also was the inspiration for the popular 1995 film of the same name. 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. [4]

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.[5]) 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"

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.

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  Black Cross
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  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
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  The industrial workshops (formerly a school)

Media related to Indian Queens at Wikimedia Commons

• Indian Queens Brass Band