Cornwall's cathedral city — Victorian spires, tidal rivers, and the gateway to the Cornish Riviera
Truro is the only city in Cornwall — a compact, handsome town of Georgian streets and a dramatic Victorian cathedral whose three spires dominate the skyline. The city sits where three rivers meet to form the Truro River, a tidal creek navigable by small boats, giving it a surprisingly maritime character for an inland location. It is the administrative and retail centre of Cornwall, with the Royal Cornwall Museum (one of the finest regional museums in England), excellent restaurants serving Cornish produce, and the county's main Christmas market.
Truro was a stannary town — one of the official places where Cornish tin was assayed and taxed — from at least 1305, and it grew wealthy on the tin and copper mining that made Cornwall one of the world's most important metal-producing regions in the 18th and 19th centuries. It became a city only in 1877 with the creation of the Diocese of Truro; the cathedral was built between 1880 and 1910, incorporating the south aisle of the old parish church of St Mary — one of only two English cathedrals to be built from scratch since the Reformation.