Capital City

Truro, Cornwall, England South West

Recommendation added: 24/03/2006 19:46
By: jsimons128 (YSUK rating +100)

jsimons128 has been thanked 2 times for this contribution

"Truro, the capital city of Cornwall, is a fine city with Georgian streets and an unusual cathedral. Despite its distance from the sea, Truro was at one time a port of sizeable importance, complete with its own Custom house.
However, as Falmouth grew in size, so did this aspect of Truro's commercial life decline although it is not many years since the car park outside the Pannier market was an open river with a quay on either side where ships used to berth.
River life is still part of the charm of the city, Truro being situated in a bowl at the junction of two rivers.
One is the Allen that flows under Four Bridges, the highest, at Moresk, being the site of the original ford that, 700 years ago, marked the eastern entrance to this town.
The other is the Kenwyn that flows past the Victoria Park before flowing underground to surface again near the Town Qauy where it joins the Allen to form the Truro River.
Truro cathedral is young as cathedrals go. It was built in 188. And, apart from St Paul's, was the first cathedral to be built since the Reformation.
Designed in early English style with French influences, one of the nicest features of the fine building is that it was squeezed into the centre of the town like so many other Continental cathedrals.
Another imaginative feature is that the design incorporates part of the 16th century parish church of St Mary which had become very dilapidated and would have had to be demolished had it not been 'adopted' by the cathedral. Truro has all the amenities one would expect to find in a county capital-good shops, pubs, restraunt, hotels and multi-storey car parks."