FREE Public Guided Tours
2025-10-23 11:00 - 12:00 UTC | Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance
Our team of Volunteer Tour Guides will be offering insights into the current exhibition through a program of short guided tours.
Tours will be offered at 11.00 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The tours are included in the admission price to the Gallery and last between 30 and 45 minutes. No booking is required, but places are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

Arty Afternoons: Christmas Wreath
2025-12-13 14:30 - 15:30
Come make your very own Christmas wreath with all sorts of fun craft supplies, then take it home to hang up as a brand-new decoration!

FREE family activities take place every Saturday; drop in anytime between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm

Arty Afternoons: Christmas Tree Sculpture
2025-12-20 14:30 - 15:30
Design and make a colourful Christmas tree sculpture inspired by Biddy Picard’s blue, ceramic tree displayed in Gallery 5.
FREE family activities take place every Saturday; drop in anytime between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm.

Arty Afternoons: Backgrounds and Foregrounds – Mixed Media Artworks
2026-01-03 14:30 - 15:30
Get inspired by the paintings in our exhibitions and create a beautiful, mixed-media landscape artwork. Learn all about perspective and how objects are larger in the foreground, and smaller the further away they are in the background.
FREE family activities take place every Saturday; drop in anytime between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm.

Baby Sensory
2026-01-05 10:00 - 11:30, 2026-01-19 10:00 - 11:30, 2026-02-02 10:00 - 11:30, 2026-02-16 10:00 - 11:30
Free, drop-in session for babies from birth to crawlers. Come and experience the amazing artworks whilst exploring sensory play together in the Gallery.

Little Penlee Explorers: Drop-in sessions for under 5s
2026-01-05 10:00 - 12:00, 2026-02-02 10:00 - 12:00
Join us to explore, play and create at Penlee House! With activities throughout the galleries, these free, drop-in sessions are for under-5s and their grown-ups.
Monthly on Mondays, 10 am-12 pm.

Arty Afternoons: Through a Newlyn Window
2026-01-10 14:30 - 15:30
Create a 3D scene from card showing the view from a Newlyn cottage window. Explore paintings of local scenes by the Newlyn School and draw your own version of what you might have seen either today or 125 years ago.
FREE family activities take place every Saturday; drop in anytime between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm.

Arty Afternoons: Museum Explorer Sketchbook
2026-01-17 14:30 - 15:30
Make a tiny sketchbook with the Penlee House team. Then explore our wonderful archaeology and social history museum galleries and sketch your favourite artefacts on display.
FREE family activities take place every Saturday; drop in anytime between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm.

Arty Afternoons: Paper Portrait Collage
2026-01-24 14:30 - 15:30
Explore the new exhibition of beautiful portraits at Penlee House. Get creative by drawing your own portrait on tracing paper, then transfer each facial feature onto colourful card and paper. Finally, cut out and collage your pieces together to make a bright and cheerful portrait masterpiece to take home.
FREE family activities take place every Saturday; drop in anytime between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm.

Arty Afternoons: Put yourself into a Newlyn School portrait
2026-01-31 14:30 - 15:30
Be inspired by the collection of Newlyn School portraits in the exhibition here at Penlee House. Imagine yourself in the shoes of the people in the portraits and draw yourself into one of the famous Newlyn School paintings.
FREE family activities take place every Saturday; drop in anytime between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm.

FREE Public Guided Tour
2026-02-03 11:00 - 11:30

FREE Public Guided Tours
2026-02-05 11:00 - 11:30, 2026-02-10 11:00 - 11:30, 2026-02-12 11:00 - 11:30, 2026-02-17 11:00 - 11:30, 2026-02-19 11:00 - 11:30

Arty Afternoons: Victorian Silhouettes
2026-02-07 14:30 - 15:30
Many of the portraits in the current exhibition were painted during or around the Victorian Era. Try making your own Victorian-style silhouette artwork. You could base it on one of the portraits in the gallery or imagine a scene from Newlyn about 100 years ago — perhaps fishwives selling their catch or fishermen setting out to sea.
FREE family activities take place every Saturday; drop in anytime between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm.

Friends of Penlee House Lecture: The Cornish Fishing Industry in Archive Photographs
2026-02-09 14:30 - 16:00 | Queen’s Hotel, Penzance
The Cornish Fishing Industry in Archive Photographs. A talk by John McWilliams. A look at the Cornish fishing industry of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in contemporary art and photographs.
John McWilliams has published a number of books on the history of the fishing industry in Cornwall and Brittany. He was a member of the photo history group at Penlee House Gallery & Museum and has a wide knowledge of the extensive archival resources
Date & Time: Monday 9th February, 2.30pm
Venue: The Queen’s Hotel, Penzance
Tickets: £7 Friends, £15 Non-Friends
Book Now!

Arty Afternoons: Colourise Black and White photos
2026-02-14 14:30 - 15:30
Discover the historical photographs in the Harry Penhaul exhibition. These were taken before colour photography, but can you make them modern by adding colour? Use different materials to colourise the brilliant photos of local life in West Cornwall in the 1940s and 50s.
FREE family activities take place every Saturday; drop in anytime between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm.

February Half Term Activity: Harry Penhaul inspired camera viewfinders and film rolls
2026-02-19 13:30 - 15:30
Join us at Penlee House Gallery & Museum this half term and explore the exhibition of photographs by Harry Penhaul. Create a mini camera viewfinder and imagine taking photos of the exhibitions. Sketch what you have discovered on a ‘roll of camera film’, and your drawings will become the ‘photographic’ images.

Arty Afternoons: Dress a Portrait
2026-02-21 14:30 - 15:30
Many of the portraits and photographs in the current exhibition show people from past times. Bring history into the present and update the people in the images by dressing them in modern clothes and giving them more modern accessories. You could swap a mirror for a mobile phone or a traditional Victorian outfit for a football kit!
FREE family activities take place every Saturday; drop in anytime between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm.
