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History: The Queen’s Tavern which originally operated as a gentlemen’s club, is, as far as can be ascertained the oldest licenced premises in Durban as the licence dates back to 1894. This building, often described a bastion of a forgotten era, is one of Durban’s few remaining links with Natal’s Colonial Past.

The building was restored in 1973 and turned into a restaurant aimed to reviving the gracious days of Colonial Natal.
Visual Description: The original portion of Quee_x0019_s Tavern, built in 1894, consisted of a foyer with a pressed steel ceiling, a billiard room, a smoking room, a staff room and several out buildings. In 1903 a committee room and kitchen was added and the billiard room enlarged.
The facade of the building is a heavily ornamented example of late- Victorian classicism. The ground floor has two heavily rusticated windows flanking a centrally placed door. the windows have half-round caps which are also outlined in plaster with centrally placed keystone. Above at first floor level the building has elaborate balustrading and a well detailed dakkamer a most unusual feature in South African Victorian architecture..
The dakkamer has a well proportioned triangular pediment with central cartouch rising above a dentilled cornice. The dakkamer façade is also heavily ornamented and its windows are smaller versions of the large half round windows in the lower façade.
Interesting features of the interior of the building are the pressed steel ceiling in the foyer, the patterned ceiling in the dining room, the black and white portico floor, and the coloured glass windows which show respresentations of Holbein, Titian. Tennyson and Raleigh.Facades including fenestration pattern, modulations and projections; single-storied; hipped roof wit
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Construction Date: 1894
Materials: brick :
Catalogue: Kearney, 1984, No: 11.54, Significance Category: