The St Piran’s Day parade returns to Truro on March 5th 2025

Due to essential roadworks, the parade route will be different this year. It will start from Lemon Quay, where all participants will muster from 12.30pm. The parade will start at 1pm, and make its way through the centre of Truro, finishing at High Cross. Speeches will be followed by Trelawny, the national anthem of Cornwall. The event will finish by 2pm.

Truro City Council and Truro Old Cornwall Society have been working with Alice Browning and Carmen Hunt, commissioned by Lowender, to involve primary schools in this year’s parade through dance workshops, to be featured on Lemon Quay before the parade and during.

President of Truro Old Cornwall Society, Bert Biscoe, said: “We very much welcome the enthusiasm shown by our schools for St Piran and the Truro parade. Handing on such valued and resonant traditions and celebrations is vitally important for community life and everybody’s identity. It’s great to have Lowender aboard.”

The shop window dressing competition will be judged on the morning of 5th March by the Deputy Mayor, Cllr Sam Rabey, and Town Crier, Lionel Knight. The winners will be announced at High Cross at 1.30pm and will be given a trophy to display for the year.

This year, the event organisers are appealing for brass and silver band players to bring their instruments along to form the band that will play The Pengelly Marches’ – a series written by the late Jim Pengelly, especially for the Truro parade. If you would like to be involved in this ‘scratch band’, then please contact Abbie Williams at events@truro.gov.uk.

St Piran’s Day activity packs, designed by local artist Molly Biscoe working alongside the Truro Visitor Information Centre, will be delivered to primary schools in Truro. There will also be copies available for people to collect free of charge from Truro Library on Union Place and the Visitor Information Centre on Boscawen Street. (Electronic copies will also be available).

Thanks to its owner, Justin Ellis, The City of Truro Steam Roller will be making a special appearance and will be available to view all day on Lemon Quay.

Mayor of Truro, Cllr Carol Swain, said: “It’s an honour to stage the St Piran’s Day parade in Truro, and I look forward to seeing it traverse through our great little city on its way to the cathedral steps. The return of The City of Truro Steam Roller will also add another dimension to the day as it’s a very evocative part of Truro’s heritage. Many people remember it working, and we walk, ride and drive over the roads it rolled. There is great affection and admiration for steam technology, and we are excited to see it, if only stationary, back in Truro for this very special day.”

St Piran’s Day is held annually on the 5th March. It is a celebration of the life and legacy of the patron saint of Cornwall. Piran came from Ireland, sailing across the Celtic Sea on a millstone. He showed Cornish miners how to smelt tin, and built an oratory at Perranporth (Piran’s Beach) which today is an ‘at critical risk’ monument, from which he would travel through Truro to visit Perranaworthal (Piran’s Wharf) and his well nearby.

Piran, who could converse with animals, was a champion of the natural environment and had a respectful relationship between human society and its surroundings. He was the patron saint of miners, an industry which touched every aspect of Cornish life, and so he became the patron saint of Cornwall. Today, he is associated with caring, creativity, inclusion, diversity and peace, and his Feast Day is celebrated wherever people of Cornish origin are to be found.

Truro City Council and Truro Old Cornwall Society are very grateful to Cornwall Councillors and Truro Cathedral for their support and finance of the parade.

For further updates, please visit the Visit Truro website and social media channels – www.visittruro.org.uk, @visittruro