“If you fall asleep, I hope it will be because of the food you have eaten and not because of my talk” said Diana Smith, guest speaker at the meeting held on February 12 at The Royal Duchy Hotel, Falmouth.

Chairman, Ann Oliver, welcomed 79 members before introducing her whose talk was “The History of the Port of Truro”. She gave a background history of Truro, following the rivers around, what they were like in the past and how they are today.

Truro has been a port for over 800 years and has three rivers known as “tri-veru”, The Kenwyn, Allen and Tinney; together they form the Truro River which flows into Carrick Roads. Truro still thrives as a port and handles more goods than any other port in the county. She showed an aerial picture of the port today and said the port has been accepting foreign commerce since 1205 and is an ideal place for trading. She showed a picture of the crest of Truro, the central part is a 16th century heraldic design which shows a ship and fishes denoting Truro’s close association with the sea. The miner and two fishermen were added when Truro was granted a city status in 1877 by Queen Victoria. The motto reads “Exaltatum Cornu in Deo” - this is where it all started. They had two main rivers, The Kenwyn and Allen and the place where the old St Mary’s Church stood. Focused here and in the graveyard were a fair and a market and by the old Celtic Cross a ring for bull baiting; in those days, you baited the bull to tenderise the meat. The actual town of Truro was founded by the Governor of St Stephen in 1140 and had its first charter in 1153. Then there were only two rivers, a few houses and at the top of the hill was a round castle, with fields to the town. Diana showed a photograph of the ships at Charlestown and these vessels would have been the type that came into the centre of Truro. She also mentioned Black Rock, because at one time the Mayor of Truro controlled the whole of the river. In 1661 when Charles II came to the throne after the restoration he granted Falmouth part of the river. The mayor and corporation of Truro tried to get control of the whole of the river in 1709 but didn’t succeed, Falmouth retained half.

She said she would “walk around Truro” and follow the Kenryn River to its source, across Boscowan Street. All the town’s waste came out into the Kenwyn River and a lot of the problems of the rivers in Truro were the silting up with the waste from the town and the soil from the fields. The River Kenwyn came in where the piazza is now. Where the river was very wide there were fish markets and warehouses and ships would come up into what is now Lemon Quay. The land was owned by the Enys, the Lemons and the Robartes. Like all ports, you had a Rope Walk to repair and making rope.

The Packet service began in 1688 and Truro was demoted to be a creek in 1882 but the creek was covered in about 1926 and buildings were built on it. Diana showed a picture of Lemon Street in 1798, known as the finest street this side of Bath and the same year, they built Lemon Bridge. This road was built for the mail coaches from Falmouth to Truro.

Behind where Roberts store used to be was where the river was very wide and ships used to come here. In 1754 there was a toll gate which is where Mallets is today. There were wooden houses in Boscowan Street who collected the tolls for repairing the roads. Also in that area is the Dominican Priory consecrated in 1259 and went right up as far as Waterfall Gardens. When they subsequently built houses in the area, they found loads of oyster shells which was food for the poor rather than the rich. In 1330 there was a lot of burning and looting and the Black Death came when lots of people left Truro in 1349. In the 1440s the French invaded and in 1589 a Charter was granted by Queen Elizabeth I and this is when Truro began to grow. There was more exporting of tin and copper than any other port in the county. Pilchards were also being exported and later China clay. In the 1600s and 1700s, Truro became known as the London of Cornwall with all the town houses in the main street. Truro became a coinage town in 1301.

Diana showed a picture of Old Bridge which was built in the late 1300s which stopped the shipping coming into the Mill Pool. From Oridge to New Bridge, all the way down to Enys Quay, the goods were brought into the town and horses brought in tin and copper to load onto the ships. Trafalgar Wharf changed its name in 1898 to Phoenix Wharf after a fire.

From 1840 pleasure craft was going up and down the river, mostly to Malpas. One could see the amount of mud that was silting up the river but nothing was ever done about it. In 1852 the railway station was at Higher Town and passengers came here up to 1861 and goods up to 1872. In 1820 there were 30 ships that regularly came in and out of Truro. As the river was silting up, they used flat bottomed boats called lighters to carry the timber up to the timber yard. The Port of Truro today can take ships of 2,000 tons.

The vote of thanks was given by Liz Gates.

Next month’s speaker is Juliet Taylor and her talk is on “Designing Interiors for the Houses of Parliament”.