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On the face of it, Wadebridge is a sleepy little market town tucked away on the north coast of Cornwall.

But nearly 400 years ago, the town’s medieval bridge was considered so strategically important in the First English Civil War that Oliver Cromwell came in person to take it.

The English Civil War was fought between people who supported King Charles I (Royalists) and people who supported England’s Parliament (Parliamentarians).

Cornwall played a significant role in the war, being a Royalist enclave in the generally Parliamentarian south-west.

The Duchy of Cornwall and Cornwall’s Stannary Parliament were strongly connected with the royal family. They gave Cornwall a sense of independence, which was threatened by Parliament.

The Parliamentarians also had a strong English identity and people in Cornwall saw this as a threat to their own Cornish culture and identity.

The First English Civil War began in 1642 and by the beginning of 1646 military victory for the Parliamentary forces was in sight.

After losing the decisive Battle of Torrington in Devon on February 16, 1646, the Royalists escaped into Cornwall.

Parliamentarians, led by Thomas Fairfax, hunted them down and reached Launceston on February 25 and Bodmin on March 2.

The army of the commander of the Cornish Royalists, Sir Ralph Hopton, was in disarray but he refused to surrender.

On March 5 the Cornish Royalist leaders realised they were fighting a losing battle and surrendered the east of Cornwall to the Parliamentarians at Millbrook.

A day later, as the battle moved westwards, Parliamentarian commander Oliver Cromwell and 1,500 of his soldiers descended onto Wadebridge to take control of the bridge and prevent its use by the Royalist army.

The route across the bridge was considered to be of such strategic importance that Cromwell, who had been spending months mopping up resistance in Devon and Cornwall, personally led his troops there to capture it.

On March 15, Lord Hopton surrendered the rest of Cornwall to the Parliamentarians at Tresillian Bridge, near Truro, agreeing to disband the western army and to go into exile.

Charles I surrendered to the Scots on May 5, 1646, effectively ending the First English Civil War. Cromwell and Fairfax took the formal surrender of the Royalists at Oxford in June 1646.