The City of Truro is the administrative center of Cornwall with a cathedral that dominates the town. Occupying a position at the head of the Fal river, its a pretty and prosperous place and apart from anything, a busy market town with a good cross-section of shops and stores. If you’re visiting Cornwall for the first time, it makes a good base from which to start.   It is an old town, and long before the cathedral was built, was a trading center and port with ships being able to navigate right up to the top of the river. Today this area is mostly used for pleasure cruising, the river being too silted up for commercial purposes. There are some very beautiful parks and gardens, an extremely interesting museum and a good theatre. History in brief. Truro was originally a settlement at the head of a tidal river; an obvious choice both for market and trading purposes, being surrounded by agricultural land, tin mining, and with access to the sea. In the early years AD, when overland passage was difficult and sea and sail all important, it was also strategically well sited and grew to be a very important center. As the local mining industries grew, so did Truro and it became a ‘stannary’ town, for the testing of tin.   By Tudor times, the town had gained rights for the collection of dues on the whole of the river. The situation did not last, however, for after the Civil War and the restoration of King Charles ll to the throne, Truro lost a lot of those trading rights to Falmouth; the reason being, that Falmouth had been more loyal to the crown, whereas Truro had surrendered too easily to the ‘Parliamentarians’. This, of course, has remained a matter for debate, though only of historical interest in the present day, as the Industrial Revolution made big changes in Truro’s fortune.