The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume 4 (of 4)
History
The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume 4 (of 4)
Cornwall (England : County) -- History; Geology -- England -- Cornwall (County)
Here I shall add some remarks that will illustrate the origin of this
town more than Mr. Tonkin has done.
Truro takes its name from its castle. This, in Leland’s time, belonged
to the Prince of Wales as Earl of Cornwall, and was therefore one of
the castellated palaces of the Cornish Earls; it was only a small one,
however. This the ground of it shows when the walls are gone. Even in
Leland’s time, it was “clene doun;” and the area was used as a place
of exercise for shooting with bows and arrows, and for other
diversions. It “is now,” says Mr. Tonkin, “more like an old Danish
camp or round than a place that had been once inhabited.” What ideas
Mr. Tonkin had of an “old Danish camp,” I cannot say; but the castle
carries no appearance of a camp at all, either Danish, Saxon, or
Roman. Nor is it more like a round, if by “a round” Mr. Tonkin means a
Cornish one, like the amphitheatrical “round” of Piran. The only
remains of the castle, indeed, are the name, a waste area, and the old
mount or keep, the earth of which is nearly gone, and is daily
vanishing by application of it to other purposes. This artificial
mount marks the centre of the castle, had the main tower upon it, and
constituted the principal part of the whole; and a small ward must
have gone round it, standing on the natural ground, and forming the
offices to this petty palace.
This was plainly the origin of the town:――where an ancient Earl’s
house was, however small in its extent, and however occasional in its
use, it naturally drew the traders of the country to it. The wants of
such a Lord’s household, and the accompanying treasury of a kingdom in
a county, created such a call for wares, and produced such a currency
of wealth, as made it for its season the little centre of trade to the
adjoining country; and a town grew up in time, the weakly child of its
castle at first, but able to subsist without the castle at last. Such,
undoubtedly, was the origin of Truro. This lay upon the more westerly
of the two currents; the westerly side of the town, therefore, would
be the primitive and original part of it; accordingly, we see the
White Friars’ house constructed with it. From this current it
extended, as it enlarged, to the easterly one. The erection of a
church on that side, when a district was taken out of Kenwin parish,
and the peninsulated ground between the currents was formed into a
parish of itself, drew it easterly with great power. The town
consisted at first, probably, of the street running from the foot of
the hill on a part of which the castle stood, and extending backwards
with its yards and gardens to the western current; and this part of
course adopted the previous appellation of the castle, and was called
with it Tre-vereu, Tre-ureu, or Truru, Treuro, or Truro, the house or
castle upon the Uro or Uru, the same denomination of a river with that
of the Vere in Hertfordshire, the Vera-lamium of the Itineraries, the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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