Page:The Cornwall coast.djvu/110

 104 THE CORNWALL COAST that present-day architecture, when meritorious, is an imitation. The closer it keeps to old models, the better is the result. Did church-building really say its last word four centuries since ? For its greater antiquity we have to remember that Kenwyn, about a mile inland, is the mother of Truro, and this place has been claimed as a Roman station named Cenion. The Itineraries speak of the stations on the rivers Tamar^a, Voluba and Cenia. Tamara is the Tamar ; Voluba prob- ably the Fowey ; Cenia the Truro or Kenwyn River. But it is exceedingly doubtful that Rome ever had definite stations in Cornwall at all. This does not affect the antiquity ; Kenwyn was a British settlement, if never Romanised. Truro is supposed to signify the " town on the river " ; its manor was held by Robert de Mortain after the Conquest, and the place seems to have had a charter as early as the days of Stephen. Its position, far retired up the river, is eloquent of times when men dreaded to settle close to the sea — the sea brought foes and deadly night attacks ; it was when commerce became more important that Falmouth sprang into being. We have similar instances at Lostwithiel and Fowey, Totnes and Dartmouth, Exeter and Exmouth, as well as a striking modern instance in Bristol and Avonmouth. There was a castle at Truro, on the present site of the cattle market, but it was " clene down " in the time of Leland ; there were also a Dominican friary and a house of Clare monks. As a port Truro did its best to oppose the building and growth of Falmouth, but the inevit- able could only be delayed, not i)revented. The town's recompense came late, but it has come. Though it welcomed the fugitive Charles II., the