Place Names (Q) Queen Street - Quoiting Club
Queen Street, Alexandria
This street, parallel to Main Street, is a southern extension of Middleton Street. It runs from Upper Bridge Street to Queen's Drive in Burnbrae, which is actually a continuation of it.
The change of name from Middleton to Queen at Upper Bridge Street indicates not only that it was built at a later date than Middleton Street, but also there was a different builder, aiming the villas and semi-detached houses at a different market. It was started in the 1880's, but houses were built on it on an “as-and-when” basis, with some of the bungalows on its west side dating from the 1930's, while the latest, on the Bridge Street Church site, date from the late 1990's.
Queensway, Alexandria
This cul-de-sac, which runs from the corner of Queen's Drive and Queen Street in Burnbrae more or less parallel to Queen Street, consists almost entirely of private semi-detached private houses, which were mostly built in the mid-1960's.
Quoiting Club, Alexandria
Quoits were played in the Vale in the 1870's, and there was a Quoiting Club called the Thistle Club about 1876. About that particular Club, no more is known. The Alexandria Quoiting Club had a rink and Clubhouse - a large green wooden shed - at the top of Bridge Street, immediately adjacent to the Albert Hotel.
Like other Quoiting Clubs in Scotland it was in steady decline from the 1960's onwards, and closed its doors in the 1970's. Its ground quickly disappeared under an extension to what was by then the Griffin Hotel.
Quoiting Club, Bonhill
Bonhill, too, had an active Quoiting Club for most of the 20th century. It was located in the back garden of the Black Bull Inn on Main Street and the Black Bull acted as the clubhouse. It suffered the same decline as other quoiting clubs and had shut down in the 1960's before the Alexandria club closed.
Quoiting Club, Renton
While the other Vale Quoiting Clubs produced many fine quoiters, the Renton Club was always regarded as the Vale's elite club. They were Scottish Champions in 1949, and the club was one of the 3-4 finest in Scotland, producing many champions, especially from the Black family. When people said that you couldn't throw a stone in Renton without hitting a champion, it was often the quoiters they had in mind.
It was situated towards the bottom of Burn Street, and the people of Renton probably made more diversified use of it than just about any other club in Scotland. Like the other Vale clubs, it had floodlights so that matches could continue until well into the night. Unlike the others, however, the members thought nothing of using
the dusty rink as a dance floor to entertain wives and girlfriends on warm summer nights. The clubhouse was also more of a social centre, where wives and girlfriends were welcomed to play bingo or join in the card games. It was a great Renton institution, which is perhaps why it lasted longer than the other two in the Vale, and why it so often nostalgically recalled.