Indian Queens

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Indian Queens is a roadside village just north of Fraddon, ten miles south of Bodmin. Until recently Indian Queens used to lie along the A30 where it was often a major bottleneck. A diversion completed in 2009 now bypasses the village.

There are several theories about the origin of Indian Queens' unusual name, the most popular being that the village was once visited by Pocahontas, the youngest daughter of Powhatan, the chief of the Indian tribes who lived along the Virginia coast in the early seventeenth century. In spite of the fact that there is no evidence to support this story, it has firmly won over local imagination and there is now a street in Indian Queens called 'Pocahontas Crescent.'

We do know that there was a coaching inn here dating back to the eighteenth century called 'The Indian Queen' and that an inscription on the porch allegedly told the story of a Portuguese princess who landed in Falmouth and spent a night at the inn on her way to London. It is thought that her dark skin may have convinced onlookers she was Indian. The inn was demolished in the 1960s and the old signboard taken to the Truro Museum.