One of the "brooks" at Truro mentioned by Leland was the River Kenwyn,
which joined the River Allen to form the Truro River; but before doing
so the Kenwyn, or some portion of its overflow, had been so diverted
that the water ran down the gutters of the principal streets. It was a
novelty to us to see the water so fresh and clean running down each side
of the street--not slowly, but as if at a gallop.
In the time of the Civil War Truro was garrisoned for the King, but in
1646, after a fierce engagement between the Royalists under Sir Ralph
Hopton and Cromwell's forces under Sir Thomas Fairfax, a treaty was
signed at Tresillian River Bridge (a pretty place which we had passed
last night, about three miles outside the town on the St. Austell road),
by which Truro was surrendered quietly to the Parliament.
The Grammar School, where many eminent men had been educated, was
founded in 1549. Among its old pupils was included Sir Humphry Davy,
born in 1778, the eminent chemist who was the first to employ the
electric current in chemical decomposition and to discover nitric oxide
or "laughing gas." He was also the inventor of the famous safety-lamp
which bears his name, and which has been the means of saving the lives
of thousands of miners.
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