Indian Queens - behind every picture there’s a story. A photo-walk through a Cornish village

Pocahontas - the original Indian Queen. The romanticised 19th century depiction of her and Disney's version!

In mid-Cornwall, just off the A30 by the Fraddon services, there’s a village called Indian Queens. I generally go through or past it on the way somewhere, but the other week I took a slower wander through, a photo-walk if you like, armed with a box of cameras. I came across a couple of interesting things.

First of all - why Indian Queens? Turns out it doesn’t come from ancient Cornish lore, but a far more prosaic and humble source … it was the name of an 18th century pub built on a plot of land known as ‘White Splat’! Originally called 'The Queens Head', it became known as ‘The Indian Queen’, possibly because a foreign (possibly Portuguese) princess stayed there while travelling through, and her dark skin led the very parochial locals to think she was Native American! By the end of the 19th century it had become 'The Indian Queens' (Queen Victoria being Empress of India at the time) and the small settlement which had built up around the pub needed a name - so, Indian Queens it was. The original pub was demolished in the 1960s, so unfortunately the link has been lost for ever.

Local legend also has linked the village to Pocahontas, the famous Native American who married an Englishman and travelled to the UK in 1616, as fictionalised in the 1995 Disney animated movie Pocahontas. There’s no evidence that she visited Cornwall, let alone Indian Queens (which was wasn’t called that at the time, anyway!) but you should never let facts get in the way of a good story.

Read more about the real Pocahontas, not the Disney one (!) at https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/pocahontas-her-life-and-legend.htm

The Pocahontas non-connection to Indian Queens is 'celebrated' with the naming of a rather nondescript crescent of bungalows off Chapel Road (opposite the Indian Queens Band band room, more of that below …). More of a ‘nod’ than a celebration.

Pocahontas Crescent, Indian Queens, Cornwall, UK

Across the road is the Indian Queens Band band room. The world of brass bands, which, as a lapsed trombone player, I’m very familiar with, is normally associated with the north of England, with bands often linked to now-defunct collieries. It’s a similar situation in Cornwall, with its origins in the mining communities of mid-Cornwall and the strong Methodist tradition that gre down here.

But there has to be a story lurking behind the two signs outside the band room. This sign sits proudly in their forecourt:

Indian Queens Band

Established 1856

Indian Queens Band Band Room, Indian Queens, Cornwall, UK

However, there’s another sign by the fence with the inscription carved into stone:

XXXXXX Brass Band

Established 1856

The name of the band has been crudely hacked off with a chisel! What bust-up led to someone obliterating the name of the band with such violence? What prompted the name-change? What legacy had to be erased? And why is the stone still there as a reminder of that sorry moment in their history? If I wanted, I could contact the band and ask them, but I prefer to leave it with a sense of mystery ... of questions left unanswered. Again, why let truth spoil a good mystery?

The last milestone of my Indian Queens wander was a … milestone.

Bodmin/Newquay Milestone, Indian Queens, Cornwall, UK

I like capturing these items of street furniture from a bygone age - they’re much more interesting than modern signs with all their high-visibility and concreted-in posts. I prefer the rustic charm of these old stones and screech to a halt to jump out and take a picture whenever I spot one.

There’s a trend (probably a bit of a stretch to call it a ‘trend’ …) for the council, or some well-intentioned citizens, to ‘refurbish’ these stones with a fresh coat of whitewash and the lettering carefully picked out in black paint. I hope they don’t do too many of them as I much prefer the faded rustic originals.

All these pictures were taken with my Nikon F2 AS 35mm SLR from the late 1970s with a gorgeous Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lens from the early 1970s.

For lens geeks, it’s the New-Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 v1 version, a pre-AI lens (that’s Auto Indexing, not Artificial Intelligence!) that was factory-converted to work with AI cameras by mounting the ‘bunny ears’ on the back of the lens that pick up the camera’s metering. It’s a lovely combination. The film was IIlord Delta 100, developed in ID-11 at home, scanned with my Nikon D5600 DSLR and a Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/2.8 macro lens with the excellent Valoi easy35 v2 DSLR scanning system. The 'scans' were imported into Lightroom Classic on my Mac, and converted using the Negative Lab Pro plug in.