Penlee House

Art in the Park: Draw and Paint Birds
2025-08-21 13:30 - 15:30 UTC
Can you find the beautiful, delicate etchings of birds in our exhibition? Collect drawing materials then explore and sketch the birds we have on display in the Gallery. Return to base to colour your drawings using pencils or watercolour paints.

Arty Afternoons: Bird Origami
2025-08-23 14:30 - 15:30
Explore the colourful Charles Simpson paintings of birds in the exhibition at Penlee House. Make origami birds from paper and collage them into a Charles Simpson scene.

Art in the Park: Chough Mobile
2025-08-28 13:30 - 15:30
Journey through our exhibition and spot the different Cornish choughs that we have on display. Make a mini chough mobile to fly through the air, just like the ones you see when walking along the stunning cliff paths of West Penwith.

Arty Afternoons: Bird Watching Binoculars
2025-08-30 14:30 - 15:30
Using recycled materials, join us to make your own birdwatching binoculars. See how many birds you can spot in the exhibition at Penlee House Gallery & Museum.

Arty Afternoons: Paper plate birds
2025-09-06 14:30 - 15:30
Join us for a fun craft session where you will turn a simple paper plate into a beautiful bird. Add feathers, details, and bright colours using tissue paper collage. All materials provided — just bring your imagination!
FREE family activities take place every Saturday; drop in anytime between 2.30pm and 3.30pm

Awenek! The Great Cornish Heritage Festival: Iron Age bead necklaces
2025-09-13 10:00 - 17:00 | Enys Gardens, Enys Gardens, St Gluvius, Penry, TR10 9LB, United Kingdom
We’re thrilled to announce our participation in Cornwall Heritage Trust’s Awenek! The Great Cornish Heritage Festival! Discover the charm of a tiny archaeological find—a beautiful glass bead —and let it spark your creativity as you craft your own beads with our special modelling material.
Join us for a day filled with engaging activities, captivating demonstrations, mouth-watering food, and vibrant performances that cater to everyone. Celebrate Cornwall’s rich heritage and culture with us on Saturday, 13th September at Enys Gardens, Penryn.
🎟️ Ticket Info:

£5 for Cornwall Heritage Trust and Enys Gardens adult members

FREE for under 18s

£10 for non-member adults

Secure your spot by booking tickets online: https://www.cornwallheritagetrust.org/event/awenek-the-great-cornish-heritage-festival-2025/

Arty Afternoons: Air Dough golden feather
2025-09-13 14:30 - 15:30
Get crafty and make a glamorous golden feather. Create the shape using air dough and colour it with metallic pens to create a beautiful piece of bird-inspired art.
FREE family activities take place every Saturday; drop in anytime between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm

Art in the Park: Nests and Eggs
2025-09-20 11:00 - 16:00
It’s the Food Festival! Penlee House is full of beautiful bird artworks, and to celebrate the fun food festival, drop in and craft colourful nests and patterned eggs. A hands-on craft activity for all ages, inspired by nature and creativity!
FREE family activities take place every Saturday; drop in anytime between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm

Arty Afternoons: Turn your hands into birds!
2025-09-27 14:30 - 15:30
Explore our Bird exhibition at Penlee House Gallery & Museum. Take inspiration from the birds you spotted and trace around your hands. Then transform them into colourful birds using collage, colour, and creativity.
FREE family activities take place every Saturday; drop in anytime between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm.

EXPO Ertach Kernow | Cornish Heritage EXPO 2025 - Souvenir Magnets
2025-10-03 | Pendennis Castle, Falmouth, TR11 4LP
⚠️ IMPORTANT UPDATE ⚠️
Day 2 of the Cornish Heritage EXPO cancelled due to extremely high winds from Storm Amy. Stay safe everyone 💛

We’re excited to be part of EXPO Ertach Kernow | Cornish Heritage EXPO 2025 at Pendennis Castle, Falmouth, on Friday 3 & Saturday 4 October 2025! Just as visitors have done for centuries, people still come to West Cornwall to enjoy its beauty — and take home a keepsake of their visit.

Be inspired by our stunning paintings of West Cornwall and create your very own souvenir magnet to take home — a modern-day memento rooted in tradition.

Come along, explore Cornwall’s heritage, and take a little piece of it with you.

The EXPO is being run in partnership with English Heritage and Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Historic Environment Record

Find out more at https://letstalk.cornwall.gov.uk/heritage-expo-2025

Arty Afternoons: Make wings for your favourite toys!
2025-10-04 14:30 - 15:30
Come along and design your own little wings for your favourite toys to wear. Get creative using colourful felt and other fun materials to transform your toy into a magical flying friend. Let your imagination take flight!
FREE family activities take place every Saturday; drop in anytime between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm.

Friends of Penlee House: Guided tour of the Sheila Hichens collection of Newlyn School art
2025-10-09 12:00 - 13:30
Discover the Sheila Hichens Collection at The Steward’s House on St Michael’s Mount with art historian Catherine Wallace. This remarkable collection of more than 40 works by acclaimed Newlyn School artists, including Walter Langley, Stanhope Forbes, Laura Knight, and Harold Harvey, captures everyday life in west Cornwall before the mid-20th century.
Hosted by the Friends of Penlee House, this exclusive guided tour offers a rare opportunity to experience a culturally significant collection in a unique setting. Tickets are £20 for Friends of Penlee House and £25 for Non-Friends. Please note: entry to the Castle or Gardens is not included and must be booked separately. Limited mobility transport to the Mount may be available—contact Caroline White at carowhite@msn.com for details.
Tickets: £20 for Friends of Penlee House & £25 for Non Friends
Meeting point: Stewards House, St Michael’s Mount at 12.15 pm
Book Now

Arty Afternoons: Postcards for Penlee
2025-10-11 14:30 - 15:30
Discover the amazing objects on display in our Social History Museum that tell the story of life in Penzance through the years. Then, design and make your own postcard by drawing your favourite objects from the collection. What will you choose to remember about your visit?
FREE family activities take place every Saturday; drop in anytime between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm

Arty Afternoons: 3D Lamorna Birch Landscape – Perspective
2025-10-18 14:30 - 15:30
Visit our new exhibition of Lamorna Birch paintings at Penlee House. Samuel ‘Lamorna’ Birch painted local landscapes and used perspective to show near and far. Join us to make a 3D mini landscape inspired by Lamorna Birch’s work and use of perspective.
FREE family activities take place every Saturday; drop in anytime between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm

Friends of Penlee Lecture: S.J. Lamorna Birch – Career Highlights
2025-10-20 14:30 - 16:00 | Queen’s Hotel, Penzance
Timed to coincide with the Penlee House exhibition Lamorna Birch – A Painter Laureate, this talk celebrates the life and work of Samuel John “Lamorna” Birch RA (1869–1955). A self-taught painter of pure landscape and founder of the Lamorna colony in West Cornwall, Birch drew lifelong inspiration from the valley that gave him his name.
The exhibition title references Austin Wormleighton’s landmark 1995 biography, A Painter Laureate. Austin, a founding member and long-serving President of the Lamorna Society, updated the book before his passing in 2019, with the new edition published posthumously by his partner, Jo Sunter.
On display are over 25 works from Austin’s personal collection. To accompany this special exhibition, Cornish art historian David Tovey will give a lecture, S.J. Lamorna Birch – Career Highlights, exploring Birch’s achievements and legacy.
Date & Time: Monday 20th October, 2.30pm
Venue: The Queen’s Hotel, Penzance
Tickets: £7 Friends, £15 Non-Friends
Book Now!

FREE Public Guided Tours
2025-10-23 11:00 - 12:00 | 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: Biddy Picard Collage
2025-10-25 14:30 - 15:30
Biddy Picard was an artist who loved painting the beautiful places around West Penwith and the Isles of Scilly. Come and see her amazing artwork at Penlee House! Then, have fun making your own Biddy Piccard-style picture using tissue and other collage materials.

October Half Term Activity: Greenstone axeheads plus histoirc farming
2025-10-29 11:00 - 14:00
What is Greenstone? And what was it used for?*Adventure through time, as we discover one of the oldest materials for making farming tools.*Starting in the Neolithic, the time when organised farming practices began, and finishing in the 1800s, as we celebrate some of Penlee’s farming paintings from the Newlyn School of Art.*We will be making a variety of crafts, all inspired by farming, old and older, as well as by Allantide, a traditional Cornish event celebrating the end of the Harvest Season.*Come join us for a FREE drop-in workshop featuring apples & axes!

Half Term Activity: Picard People Painting
2025-10-30 13:30 - 14:30 | Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance
Biddy Picard loved to paint people in harbour scenes, capturing everyday life in our local West Penwith villages. Join us to make your own Biddy Picard-inspired painting and personalise it with your own family, friends and pets!
FREE Event, drop by anytime between 1.30 pm-3.30 pm

Arty Afternoons: Newlyn School Air Dough figures
2025-11-01 14:30 - 15:30
Come and see our Newlyn School paintings and spot the Newlyn fisherfolk and their families. Then, have fun making a little Newlyn figures with soft air-drying dough!
FREE family activities take place every Saturday; drop in anytime between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm.

Arty Afternoons: Water textures – Lamorna Birch
2025-11-08 14:30 - 15:30
Look closely at Lamorna Birch’s beautiful paintings and see how many different watery scenes you can find. Then get creative together by making water-inspired landscapes, using colourful tissue paper and other fun materials.
FREE family activities take place every Saturday; drop in anytime between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm.

Arty Afternoons: Biddy Picard style 3D Houses
2025-11-15 14:30 - 15:30
Biddy Picard loved painting village scenes with pretty white cottages. Come along and create your very own 3D Cornish cottage using card, collage, and lots of imagination. A fun activity for families to enjoy together!
FREE family activities take place every Saturday; drop in anytime between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm.

Lecture: Heroines in War
2025-11-19 14:30 - 16:00 | Queen’s Hotel, Penzance
Heroines in War: Women War Artists and the depiction of Women’s role in the Second World War with Catherine Wallace
In this lecture we look at some of the Women artists whose work was commissioned to depict subjects as varied as the bombed out buildings of London during the Blitz, the evacuation of children from London, the heroines of the various Women’s Auxillary Units including Air Transport, Air Service, Territorial Service, as well as the many jobs women undertook in industry such as welding and vehicle fabrication; working in munition and camouflage factories including those in Cornwall. The work of the Women’s Land Army, which was a considerable force during the Second World War, was also captured by many artists, including Ethel Gabain and Evelyn Dunbar. Women War artists were also sent abroad to record the release of prisoners from Belsen and the refugees in Germany, including Doris Zinkeisen and Mary Kessell. The talk ends with Dame Laura Knight’s powerful depictions of the Nuremberg trials.
Date & Time: Wednesday 19th November, 2.30pm
Venue: The Queen’s Hotel, Penzance
Tickets: £7 Friends, £15 Non-Friends
Book Now!
