 | ||
The Old Queen's Head is a public house on Pond Hill, in the City of Sheffield, England, that occupies the oldest domestic building in the city.[1] This timber framed building is thought to date from c. 1475,[2] although the earliest known written record of it is in an inventory compiled in 1582 of the estate of George Talbot, the 6th Earl of Shrewsbury that included the furnishings of this building, which was then called "The hawle at the Poandes".[3] As a part of the Earl's estate, it may have been used as a banqueting hall for parties hunting wildfowl in the nearby ponds. These ponds, which formed in the area where the Porter Brook meets the River Sheaf, are now gone, but are commemorated in the local names Pond Street, Pond Hill (formerly Pond Well Hill) and Ponds Forge.
By the beginning of the 19th century, the building was being used as a residence. In 1840 a pub called the Old Queen's Head was opened in the neighbouring building and, sometime after 1862, the pub expanded into this building. The building was given Grade II* listed status in 1952. The pub was refurbished in 1993, as part of the Tom Cobleigh chain, but is now served by the Thwaites Brewery.
The Queen in the pub's name is likely Mary, Queen of Scots, who was imprisoned in Sheffield from 1570 to 1584.