Photo above: Blackfriars St. map.
Blackfriars Street was named after the area which was once home to a Dominican Friary, (dissolved in the mid 1500s). The Queen beer house, which had its own brew house, was advertised to let in the Leicester Chronicle on 18 February 1865, and a brief description was given. No records yet found pre-1850, and possibly it had another name prior to Queen Victoria’s reign (if indeed that’s who it was named after).
1850s, Thomas Moore was victular. In 1863, landlord James Dalby was summoned for having an unruly house. PC Robinson was on duty in Blackfriars Street at 1:30 am when he heard cries of ‘Murder’ coming from the beer house. On approaching the Queen he found a women lying drunk by the back door and on entering he found fighting going on upstairs. The landlord, Dalby, and his wife were completely drunk, four men and a women also drunk and fighting as well. The PC asked Dalby what was going on and whether he what time it was. ‘Its all right, they are all lodgers’ replied the landlord. That didn’t wash with the magistrates as he was fined £2 or one month.
In May 1865, a new landlord – William Robinson – was also charged with having his house open during illegal hours. The case was dismissed due to his ignorance. In June same year Robinson was again charged again for same offence. This time he claimed the men were travellers so he served them, which he was entitled to do. Case dismissed. Robinson seems to be have been dealt with leniently on both occasions.
Edward Ashley followed a year later, he was fined for a similar offence.
Other victulars included: 1872, J. Ratcliffe. 1880, WilliamTowers. 1881, John Gamble, and finally, Sarah Spence, 1889. The Queen was sold at auction together with three dwellings for £1,055 in March 1890 and shortly swept away when the area was decimated for the forthcoming Great Central Railway.