Description of the attraction
The Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Truro is the main attraction of the capital of Cornwall. The cathedral was built at the end of the 19th century. All guidebooks note that this cathedral is visible from anywhere in the city.
Diocese Truro was formed on December 15, 1876, and in 1880 construction of a cathedral began on the site of the parish church of the Virgin Mary. The Church of the Virgin Mary existed on this site already in 1259, and possibly earlier. For the construction of the cathedral, the architect John Loughborough Person, the author of the cathedral in Lincoln, was invited. The first bishop of Truro, Edward Benson, also previously served in Lincoln, so the choice of the architect was not accidental. The first two stones were laid in May 1880 by the Duke of Cornwall, later King Edward VII. In addition to the traditional cornerstone, another granite slab was laid - as a symbol of belief that the cathedral will still be built, since there were great doubts that it would be possible to raise enough money to complete the construction.
The cathedral was built in the neo-Gothic style with elements of the French Gothic. The height of the central tower with a spire is 76 meters, of the western towers - 61 meters. This is one of three cathedrals in Great Britain, crowned with three spiers at once. The cathedral was completed in 1910, Person died in 1897, and his son Frank was finishing the work. Part of the church of the 16th century has survived, which now forms the southern side-altar of the temple and is called "the side-altar of the Virgin Mary".
