POSTPONED Revealing The Morrab Library: Poetry and Porcelain with artists in Residence Rebecca Harvey & Lucy Sparrow
2024-12-11 14:00 - 15:00 (Europe/London) | Morrab Library
CANCELLED. Please note that this talk has been postponed to Wednesday 29th January 2025, 2pm. Please email enquiries@morrablibrary.org.uk if you would like to come along to this revised date.
Our penultimate talk of the year in the Reading Room at The Morrab Library will be from our Artists in Residence, Lucy Sparrow and Rebecca Harvey. This will take place on Wednesday 11th December at 2pm.
The Morrab Library is more than books. Whilst it isan archive of treasures revealing the past, it also embraces the contemporary and speaks to the future.
Poet Lucy Sparrow and ceramicist Rebecca Harvey spent time exploring and responding to the wonders of this special place over the course of a year.
You’re warmly invited to an illustrated talk and conversation discussing their time spent as Artists in Residence, as well as a reading of Lucy’s poems.
Tickets are allocated by a ballot system. Please email enquiries@morrablibrary.org.uk or call 01736 364474 to be entered into the ballot for a ticket. The ballot closes on Monday 2nd December.
Entry to this event is free but donations are welcomed to help support The Morrab Library (suggested £5). Refreshments will be provided after the talk.

Going to Ground: an evening with Philip Marsden and Tim Hannigan
2025-02-26 19:30 - 21:00 | The Acorn Theatre
at the Acorn Theatre, Wednesday 26th February 2025, 7:30 pm
Join authors and two great friends of the library, Philip Marsden and Tim Hannigan in conversation as they celebrate Philip’s new book, Under a Metal Sky. They will talk about the cultures of Cornwall and Ireland, the interplay of nature and mythology, and Tim’s current travel book project.
The Morrab Library is delighted to be hosting this event, and proceeds from ticket sales will support the ongoing care and preservation of our special place.
Library Patron Philip Marsden is an acclaimed author of history and travel literature, having written books like The Crossing Place and Rising Ground, which explore themes from global journeys to local Cornish landscapes. His new work, Under a Metal Sky delves into mining histories in Cornwall and ends in the Caucasus, examining humanity’s uneasy relationship with natural resources.
Tim Hannigan, a Cornish writer with a background in journalism, has authored books on Indonesian history and Cornish culture, including The Granite Kingdom. He divides his time between Cornwall and Ireland, where he teaches, and is currently working on a new book about a 500-mile walk across Ireland that explores historical access to the countryside.
Tickets to what will be a fascinating evening are now available exclusively through the Acorn Theatre. Use this link to buy tickets, or drop by their box office to purchase them. Tickets will be sold on a Pay What You Can basis, between £10 – £18, with student tickets just £5.
Buy tickets here.
Our friends from the Edge of the World Bookshop will be selling copies of Philip’s and Tim’s books in the Acorn bar at the event.
We hope you can join us, and enjoy what will be a wonderful evening whilst supporting our library.

Landmarks and Legends - a talk by Linda Camidge
2025-08-09 11:00 - 12:00 | Morrab Library
Join writer, performer, historian and library volunteer Linda Camidge for what will be a fascinating talk.
Since moving into Penzance and starting to research the history of the town 30 years ago, Linda has amassed a million words. She plans to use the information – much of which was gathered from the Morrab Library – to produce a short series of books: ‘Histories of Penzance’. Each published chapter will have a digital ‘companion text’, giving further information, updates and links.
The first volume, Landmarks and Legends, has recently been published. It looks in detail at some of the sites and stories that have made Penzance what it is: expect Sir Humphry and his various legacies, the ‘Battlefields’ – and how St. Anthony got his own, special Gardens.
This is a second chance to enjoy the presentation given on July 2nd as part of Penzance Literary Festival. Copies of the book will be available to buy at the special discounted price of £15 (cash or cheque) .
Tickets are allocated by a ballot system. Please email enquiries@morrablibrary.org.uk or call 01736 364474 to be entered into the ballot for a ticket. The ballot closes on Wednesday 30 July.
Entry to this event is free but donations are welcomed to help support The Morrab Library (suggested £5). Refreshments will be provided after the talk.

In My Element - a talk by Claire Lucas
2025-10-18 14:00 - 15:00 | Morrab Library
Our next Library talk will be with Claire Lucas presenting, “In My Element” – Stories and Images From the Library. This will take place in the Reading Room from 2pm-3pm on Saturday 18th October.
Claire will reflect on her time as Artist in Residence at The Morrab Library. She will talk about her project “In My Element”, where she spent time with her sketchbook and journal, collecting stories and images from members, visitors, staff and volunteers.
Claire sought insight into what the library means to them, how it provides a safe haven to those seeking to deepen their connection to their creative self, and finding their way back home to themselves through books, memories, community and creative pursuits. Claire will share stories and images from the people she met throughout her residency, highlighting what makes our library such a special place.
Tickets are allocated by a ballot system. Please email enquiries@morrablibrary.org.uk or call 01736 364474 to be entered into the ballot for a ticket. The ballot closes on Wednesday 8th October.
Entry to this event is free but donations are welcomed to help support The Morrab Library (suggested £5).
Refreshments will be provided after the talk.

FULLY BOOKED Library Talks | Mrs Dalloway, The Centenary Year: ‘Art, Modernism & War’
2025-12-10 14:00 - 15:00 | Morrab Library
PLEASE NOTE: This talk is fully booked.
Our next Library talk comes from returning speaker, Sarah Latham-Phillips, MA. On Wednesday 10th December (2pm-3pm) she will be speaking about Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway in the centenary year of the novel.
Sarah’s illustrated talk will place Virginia Woolf in the context of Modernism and the contemporary art and literature scene, explaining briefly the key changes from Victorian to Modernist literature.
She will then highlight these new modernist ideas in Woolf’s writing of Mrs Dalloway: stream of consciousness, rhythm, time, multiple viewpoints, fragmentation, perspective, psychology and light and reflection. She will also consider the subjects of war, shell shock and London.
Illustrating her talk, Sarah will use the ideas of Roger Fry, Clive Bell and the Post Impressionist Exhibitions in London of 1910 and 1912, the influences particularly of Picasso, Matisse and Cezanne and will add some stunning First World War paintings by CRW Nevinson and Paul Nash, amongst others.
Sarah Latham Phillips, MA is a member of the executive council of the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain, a freelance lecturer in Art History and English Literature, and has published on Virginia Woolf as a Cubist Writer.
Tickets are allocated by a ballot system. Please email enquiries@morrablibrary.org.uk or call 01736 364474 to be entered into the ballot for a ticket. The ballot closed on Monday 18th August. Entry to this event is free but donations are welcomed to help support The Morrab Library (suggested £5). Refreshments will be provided after the talk.

Shelter From The Storm: Cornish Saints and Winter Tales - a workshop and talk
2026-03-14 10:00 - 12:30 | Morrab Library
Join local historian Evie Bond on Saturday 14th March for a talk and workshop, as she explores the tales of Cornish saints who offered protection and guidance through wild winter weather.
Evie will talk on the legends of saints whose stories speak of storms weathered, seas calmed, and winter’s passing.
Following the presentation, and inspired by these stories, you will create small artworks using copper foil embossing.
This event offers an atmospheric blend of history, storytelling and creativity before the arrival of spring— perfect for those who love hearing unique Cornish stories.
Booking:
Tickets cost £15, including supplies for the workshop, and spaces can be booked directly with Evie via email at : cornwallhist@outlook.com

Library Talk: ‘Dartmoor Elements – the ecological poems and play extracts of Mark Beeson’ by Tom Greeves
2026-03-18 14:00 - 15:00 | Morrab Library
Mark Beeson (1954-2022) was trained as a classicist and primatologist. From 1989-2022 he was artistic director of Manaton & East Dartmoor Theatre (MED Theatre) which he founded. Mark’s greatest legacy is his creative and ecological writing of poetry and plays relating to Dartmoor. As long ago as 1980 his epic poem – The Walk – won a prize in an international poetry competition, where it was admired by Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Charles Causley and Philip Larkin.
Dartmoor Elements (published in 2025) brings together 133 of Mark’s poems and poetic play extracts, which are intimate reflections on his familiar environment of Dartmoor, drawing on decades of keen observation of his surroundings and of the creatures (both animal and human) who inhabit it, as well as on his deep knowledge of the moor’s folklore and culture. With Gillian Webster, Tom Greeves edited Dartmoor Elements, which forms the most significant collection of Dartmoor poetry ever published. The poems are accessible and often deeply moving, and contain much ecological wisdom.
TICKETS
Tickets are allocated by a ballot system. Please email enquiries@morrablibrary.org.uk or telephone 01736 364474 to be entered into the ballot.The balot closes on Monday 9th March.
Entery to this event is free but donations are welcomed to help support the library (suggested £5).
Refrehments will be provided after the talk.

Kernow to the Crystal Palace: Mary Kelynack’s Extraordinary Journey - a talk from Pamela Vass.
2026-04-15 14:00 - 15:30 | Morrab Library
In August 1851 a curiously dressed, elderly woman was seen trudging along Southampton High Street. Passers by couldn’t fail to notice her, she wore a huge beaver bonnet and carried a corracle-like basket on her back. She was a Cornish fisherwoman, she said, in her 84th year, and was walking to London from the Land’s End to see the Great Exhibition.

Mary Kelynack spent her entire life in the small community of Newlyn in the far west of Cornwall. Yet she became so inspired by the wonders of the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace that she resolved to go. Travelling by steamer, coach or train was beyond her means but there was one thing she could do – walk.

Before long she had become quite a celebrity – noticed at the Great Exhibition, taking tea with the Lord Mayor, interviewed by the Illustrated London News, modelled by a famous sculptor, having a song and a polka named after her… and even greeting the Queen.

This illustrated presentation reveals the truth behind the Cornish legend that is Mary Kelynack, covering her extraordinary journey, her adventures in London and her final, and previously unreported, adventure.
TICKETS

Tickets are allocated by a ballot system.

Please email enquiries@morrablibrary.org.uk or call 01736 364474 to be entered into the ballot for a ticket. The ballot closes on Monday 6th April.

Entry to this event is free but donations are welcomed to help support The Morrab Library (suggested £5).

Refreshments will be provided after the talk.

Copies of Pamela’s book will be sold at the talk.
