Truro’s location had given it a key advantage. The small medieval port was squashed between the two rivers of the Allen and Kenwyn but this was the point where east-west roads could cross the upper reaches of the Fal estuary. Ships could sail as far as the town: in consequence trade grew around its quays. … Continue reading Truro: cathedral and clay pipes
Tag: Cock
St Breock: literacy and good fortune
The non-mining parish of St Breock in mid-Cornwall, which included the greater part of the small town of Wadebridge, was by Cornish standards relatively unusual in Victorian times. Nine of the 13 children of 1861 who survived until 1891 could still be found in mid-Cornwall, a very high proportion. Meanwhile, not one of the St … Continue reading St Breock: literacy and good fortune
Overcrowding at Gwithian
In the mid-1800s Gwithian, on the eastern shore of St Ives Bay, was a quiet backwater, before dynamite works made it rather noisier for a short time from the 1880s. The expanse of bleak towans bordering the sea was home to wildlife not people, while seals basked undisturbed in the coves near Godrevy Point. It … Continue reading Overcrowding at Gwithian
Camborne or California?
In the previous blog I suggested that many Camborne children in the Victorian Lives database that are yet to be traced had probably emigrated. It may seem contradictory therefore to propose in this blog that a higher proportion of Camborne’s children may have stayed in Camborne when compared with other mining parishes in Cornwall, especially … Continue reading Camborne or California?
Cornish studies resources 