Queen's Place

Queen's Place

Photograph of Queen's Place, Clarke's Bridge

Cork Camera Club collection, Cork City Libraries

Queen's Place
Cork Camera Club collection, Cork City Libraries

Queen's Place

Photograph of Queen's Place, Clarke's Bridge

Cork Camera Club collection, Cork City Libraries

Enlarge image

Queen's Place

Cork Camera Club collection, Cork City Libraries

Queen's Place
Cork Camera Club collection, Cork City Libraries

Queen's Place

Cork Camera Club collection, Cork City Libraries

Enlarge image

Many of the prosperous citizens of Cork lived in houses overlooking the Lee in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Among these fashionable areas was Queen's Place, a terrace of houses in the Queen Anne style near Clarke's Bridge. When the merchants and the gentry of Cork began to take up residence in the suburbs of Blackrock and Montenotte, their houses in the city centre became tenements, housing the working classes of the Middle Parish. With the passage of the years these tenements fell into disrepair and were abandoned by their tenants. Such was the fate of Queen's Place, which was demolished by Cork Corporation in the 1970's having been uninhabited for some time. A car park adjacent to the Labour Exchange now occupies the site.

The Hanover Shoe Company premises is shown in the background of Queen's Place. The building had originally housed the Hive Iron Works, which was the most important iron works in Cork during the nineteenth century. The Hive Iron Works was founded by Thomas Addison Barnes in 1800, but by 1819 it had been taken over by the Perrott family. The family is commemorated in the place name Perrott Avenue. The fortunes of the factory declined during the latter part of the nineteenth century, although the Hive Iron Works was still producing iron castings well into the twentieth century. By 1935 the Hanover Shoe Company had taken over the premises shown in the photograph, but the Hive Iron Works continued to operate from another premises on Hanover Street. Works cast in the Hive Iron Works may still be seen in many places around the city. The lion just visible on the top of the building was cast by Richard Perrott in 1845: the figure of a lion forms part of the Perrott family coat of arms. The lion now sits atop the new Labour Exchange.