Truro

Plymouth lies on the Devon side of the Tamar as it slides out into the Sound. On the other side lies Cornwall.

There’s something strangely magical about getting on a train here and crossing Brunel’s famous bridge over to the Celtic mysteries of Cornwall, England-but-not-quite, even if Cornish is not as prevalent here as Welsh is in the valleys over the Bristol Channel.

Unfortunately photos through a train window struggle to do justice to the rolling bucolic landscape, the steep green valleys and hidden estuaries, the old tin mines and overgrown slagheaps. You’ll have to come and see for yourself. As it’s one of the country’s most-visited counties, you probably already have.

An hour or so later, we’re there.

Once a port that made its money from tin, until the river silted up and the tin ran out, Truro turns out to be a delightful little big town that claims to be the southernmost city on the British mainland (Penzance doesn’t have a cathedral).

Truro’s cathedral, neo-Gothic, triple-spired, local rock, was built between 1880 and 1910. The town was incorporated as a city in 1876 so maybe someone just went, oops, we’d better have a cathedral then.

The first bishop of the new diocese which came with city status was one E F Benson and, if you like your Christmases traditional and choral, you have much to thank him for. For the Christmas of 1880, in the temporary wooden structure that was in place during the building of the cathedral, Bishop Benson came up with the idea of a service featuring nine lessons and carols, a format brought to glorious life by Kings College Cambridge at 3pm every Christmas Eve (at time of writing only God knows what will happen in 2020).

For many people that boy soloist’s shaky but tender delivery of the first verse of Once In Royal David’s City marks the beginning of the festive season. But back in Truro in 1880, Bishop Benson’s motives were much more blunt.

We leave the Cathedral, and it’s time for a relaxed stroll around town as we head back to the station. A couple more pics from earlier as we make our way.