Queen Square, named for Queen Anne after she visited the city in 1702, was an entirely new concept in Bristol - a highly fashionable development outside of the city walls, where residents could escape the dirt and grime of the city. It was one of the grandest residential squares in Europe, built to imitate those of London and had some of the city's earliest brick-built houses.

Bristol Corporation defined the size, shape and material for houses and even how the inhabitants should conduct themselves. It decreed that residents should

'build noe mean sordid building on any of the said Ground to be Receptacles for poor people' nor let the premises to any business that could 'annoy the neighbours by noise, ill smells, danger of fire or other wise.'

Only the wealthiest of Bristol's residents could afford to live there and these included Captain Woodes Rogers who moved into a new house in the square when he returned from the round-the-world voyage that had made him a national hero. His neighbours were generally of a similar standing, but the square was not entirely given over to those of wealth and high-status. Houses belonging to some of the square's poorer residents, built before the grander properties, were ordered to be demolished but their tenants resisted and were ultimately bought out.