page_title: Launceston, Cornwall
section_title: Administration
hierarchical_section_title: Launceston, Cornwall / Administration
caption_attribution_description: English: Launceston Chamber of Trade President's Chain. Text in the middle reads 'royale et loyale' and 'unity et progress'. Coat of arms of the Borough of Launceston, Cornwall: Gules, a representantion of Launceston Castle or within a bordure azure an orle of towers of the second.
context_page_description: Launceston is a town, ancient borough, and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is 1 mile west of the middle stage of the River Tamar, which constitutes almost the entire border between Cornwall and Devon. The landscape of the town is generally steep particularly at a sharp south-western knoll topped by Launceston Castle. These gradients fall down to the River Kensey and smaller tributaries.
  The town centre itself is bypassed and is no longer physically a main thoroughfare. The A388 still runs through the town close to the centre. The town remains figuratively the "gateway to Cornwall", due to having the A30, one of the two dual carriageways into the county, pass directly next to the town. The other dual carriageway and alternative main point of entry is the A38 at Saltash over the Tamar Bridge and was completed in 1962. There are smaller points of entry to Cornwall on minor roads.
  Launceston Steam Railway narrow-gauge heritage railway runs as a tourist attraction during the summer months. It was restored for aesthetic and industrial heritage purposes and runs along a short rural route, it is popular with visitors but does not run for much of the year.
context_section_description: Launceston was a Parliamentary Borough from medieval times, with the right to return two members of parliament. However, before the 19th-century Reform Acts the right to vote was not held by all the residents but only by the freemen of the borough, and by 1832 there were fewer than 50 and it had come to be regarded as a rotten borough, one of many in Cornwall. Neighbouring Newport was also a borough with two MPs of its own. Launceston lost one of its two MPs and Newport both by the Great Reform Act of 1832; the area included in the borough of Launceston was considerably extended to enable the franchise to be opened up. It finally lost its right to separate representation in 1885, and became part of a new county constituency of Cornwall named after the town. Since 1918 it has been part of the North Cornwall parliamentary constituency. The current MP, since 2015, is the Conservative Scott Mann.
  Launceston was once regarded as the capital of Cornwall (although it was never officially the county town - see above), and in 1973 the Prince of Wales visited to receive his feudal dues from the Duchy of Cornwall.
  The arms of the town are Gu. a triple circular tower in a pyramidal form Or the first battlements mounted with cannon of the last, all within a bordure Az. charged with eight towers domed on the second. A badge was granted on 26 Mar 1906, being the first ever granted to a civic body: A keep or castle Gold.
  Launceston is twinned with Plestin-les-Grèves in Brittany, France.
caption: Launceston Chamber of Trade President's Chain showing the coat of arms and motto
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