Plymouth Proprietary Library

Launch: Saturday 10th January 2026: 10am - 2pm.

Works produced by members of the PPL watercolour group will be on display. Following the launch on Saturday 10th Jan (10am - 2pm), the paintings will remain on display until Wednesday 21st Jan.

Wednesday 14th January 2026 at 2pm.

£5 for members. £8 for non-members.

Pamela Vass returns to the PPL to tell the story of Mary Kelynack. Mary spent her entire life in the small community of Newlyn in the far west of Cornwall. Yet in 1851 she was so inspired by the wonders of the Great Exhibition in London that she resolved to go, one way or another. Travelling by coach or train was beyond her means but there was one thing she could do - walk.

Before long she became a celebrity - taking tea with the Lord Mayor, being interviewed by the Illustrated London News, modelled by a famous sculptor, having a polka named after her ... and even greeting the Queen.

Friday 16th January 2026 at 2pm.

Railways of Cornwall - Full Mocumentary.

Join Rosalind and James on their railway adventure across picturesque Cornwall. Together they travel by tracks from Plymouth to Penzance calling at Looe, Falmouth, Gunnislake and many more historic stations. © all rights reserved - Lucky Everett 

'Dressed To Kill' - featuring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes.

A series of murders grips London after three identical music boxes—crafted by inmates of Dartmoor Prison—are auctioned following the death of their maker, a disgraced forger named John Davidson. Each box plays a slightly different tune, and together the melodies hide a coded message revealing the whereabouts of engraved printing plates used to counterfeit Bank of England notes. . . . 

Saturday 24th January 2026: 2pm - 4pm

£10 for members. £15 for non-members.

Is there a novel, a play or a poem in your head battling to get out? Join prizewinning novelist and playwright (and PPL patron) Babs Horton for a 2 hour writing workshop to explore your creativity and hone your writing skills.

Wednesday 28th January 2026 at 2pm.

£5 for members. £8 for non-members.

The Plymouth coastguard search and rescue team consists of 15 volunteers who are ready to respond to a wide variety of incidents 24/7 and 365 days a week covering in excess of 50 miles of coastline and tidal river frontage working alongside other emergency services. Since its' true formation in 1822, the service has come a long way and today harnesses new technologies 'To Search, to Rescue, to Save'. 

Come along to hear about how the service has developed in 200 years and what your local team get involved with today. 

Friday 20th February at 2pm.

£5 for members. £8 for non-members.

Our first film will be The Kid (1921) starring Charlie Chaplin.

This heartfelt film, Chaplin's first full-length feature is a silent masterpiece about a little tramp who discovers a little orphan and brings him up but is left desolate when the orphanage reclaims him. (68 mins)

Our second film will be The Goat (1921) starring Buster Keaton.

Buster Keaton plays a man who is mistakenly identified as a notorious, escaped murderer and is forced to go on the run from the police ..... (23 mins)

Wednesday 25th February 2026 at 2pm.

£5 for members. £8 for non-members.

After the Second World War, Plymouth was seeking to reduce its' dependance on the dockyard for employment, and with help from the Board of Trade began the task of attracting businesses to the area.

This illustrated talk by Alan Bricknell looks at the first three large companies to set up in Plymouth after the war, Tecalemit, Berkertex and Bush Radio, and also looks at one of Plymouth's largest home grown companies, Farleys.  

Saturday 28th February 2026 at 2pm.

Free for members. £4 for non-members.

Ann Gray and David Woolley have published a dozen volumes of poetry between them and edited several others. Born in Plymouth, David published Westwords, a literary and arts magazine for the south west from 1986 to 1992. From 1994 to 2010 he was Literature Officer for Swansea, based at the Dylan Thomas Centre.

Ann established the Liskeard Poetry Group and various other poetry initiatives throughout the 1990s and beyond, including Uncut Poets in Exeter which still runs. She won the Moth Poetry Prize in 2015 and her winning poem was shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Awards.  

Ann has run a care home in Liskeard for forty years, David has also been involved in this for over a decade, and together they also ran the Bodmin Moor Poetry Festival for eight years: 2012 to 2019. In 2023 they published Dear Life (Scryfa Press) together and also married. They will read from Dear Life and other works. 

Wednesday 11th March 2026 at 2pm.

£5 for members. £8 for non-members.

Join us as we discover more about the story of how Isambard Kingdom Brunel overcame in-fighting and controversy to bring the railway to Plymouth and build the Royal Albert Bridge. The talk looks at the cost-cutting measures that altered Brunel's plans, and the wild rumours that surrounded his failure to attend the opening ceremony in May 1859.

The talk was given by Owen Ryles, Chief Executive of the Plymouth Athenaeum.

Friday 20th March 2026 at 2pm.

Adenoid Hynkel (Charles Chaplin) takes over the government of Tomainia. He believes in a purely Aryan nation and begins to discriminate against the local Jews. This situation is unknown to a Jewish barber (Charles Chaplin), who is hospitalized after taking part in a battle during World War I. He is discharged, still suffering from amnesia about what happened in the war. Because he is Jewish, he is persecuted and forced to live in the ghetto. There he meets the washerwoman Hannah (Paulette Goddard), with whom he falls in love. The lives of the Jews are monitored by Hynkel’s guard, who has plans to dominate the world. His next step is to invade Osterlich, a neighbouring country, and to do so he negotiates an agreement with Benzino Napaloni (Jack Oakie), the dictator of Bacteria. (125mins) 

Wednesday 25th March 2026 at 2pm.

£5 for members. £8 for non-members.

We tend to think of gardens as somewhere to relax, perhaps to socialise in, to grow flowers and perhaps some vegetables. However, in the Middle Ages, for many gardening was more closely related to agriculture, it was a necessity not a luxury and was an essential part of survival. While for the wealthy it was a status symbol, because only the very wealthy could afford to put aside a piece of valuable land and use it purely for display and enjoyment.

This talk by Dr Lynda Pidgeon will look at a variety of gardens and their uses from the 12th to the 15th century, and along the way we will have a tour of some re-created gardens in England and Wales. 

Wednesday 8th April 2026 at 2pm.

£5 for members. £8 for non-members.

Holbeton church out in the South Hams is proud of its nineteenth century pews and screens decorated with Arts and Crafts carvings.  They blend in with those of 1480 -1520, and thanks to a group of Holbeton volunteers they have recently been restored.  

Following the restoration project Janet Sellick tells the tale of how and why these treasures came to be here. Their inspiration goes back millennia to early illuminated manuscripts.  Discover dragons and wyverns alongside elephants and, of course, Devon’s flora and fauna.

Friday 17th April 2026 at 2pm.

Charade (1963) is a classic American romantic screwball comedy mystery film directed by Stanley Donen and starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. The film follows Regina "Reggie" Lampert (Hepburn), an American expatriate in Paris, who discovers her husband Charles has been murdered after returning from a skiing holiday. She becomes the target of three men—Tex Panthollow (James Coburn), Herman Scobie (George Kennedy), and Leopold W. Gideon (Ned Glass)—who believe she knows the location of $250,000 in stolen gold from World War II. 

Wednesday 22nd April 2026 at 2pm.

£5 for members. £8 for non-members.

Following Robert King's talk on Drake's Island last year, this new talk uses recent images to provide a virtual walk around the island to discover what remains of the Island's defences, barracks and underground tunnels.

Tuesday 28th April: 10.30am - 12.30pm.

Tuesday 5th May: 10.30am - 12.30pm.

Tuesday 12th May: 10.30am - 12.30pm.

Cost for each workshop: £5 for members, £8 for non-members.

Refreshments and all material provided.

PPL Trustee Robert Turner will be leading three watercolour workshops at the PPL aimed at beginners. Each workshop will begin with a presentation followed by an opportunity to experiment.

Week 1: Tuesday 28th April:

• Introduction to the colour wheel, laying a wash or wet-into-wet / glazing techniques.  

Week 2: Tuesday 5th May: 

• Colour mixing and a look at the idea of starting from primary colours to mix others. 

• A look at graduation of tone, and the soft/feathering off of edges. 

Week 3: Tuesday 12th May:

• A look at vibrancy & very saturated colour, & how this can be achieved in an image. 

Friday 22nd May at 2pm.

Our first film will be The General starring Buster Keaton.

Set during the American Civil War, the film follows Johnnie Gray (played by Buster Keaton), a Southern railroad engineer whose two great loves are his locomotive, “The General” and his girlfriend, Annabelle Lee. What follows is an extended, brilliantly choreographed chase sequence involving daring stunts, train hijinks, sabotage attempts and glorious deadpan physical comedy. Running time 85 mins.

Followed by:

The Fireman (1916) starring Charlie Chaplin.

A group of firemen, led by their foreman, practice in the fire station, but one is missing...Charlie. He is still sleeping ... 

Running time 26 mins 

Wednesday 27th May 2026 at 2pm.

£5 for members. £8 for non-members.

Dr Helen Wilson returns to the PPL for a new talk on these professional woodcarvers following her sellout visit in 2025. 

This talk is based on stories the speaker has come across on her research on the Pinwill sisters including those who met or worked for Violet Pinwill, or owned pieces of her work. Their recollections and insights contributed enormously to the research and their stories add a further perspective.  

Wednesday 10th June 2026 at 2pm.

£5 for members. £8 for non-members.

In the 1860s a new type of novel exploded onto the sedate Victorian literary scene, the 'sensation' novel. Tales of desertion, kidnap, bigamy, fraud, arson and even murder amongst the middle and upper classes captivated millions of readers - from the kitchen maid to the Prince of Wales himself.

Join us as we discover more about this all-but-forgotten literary phenomenon and enjoy an afternoon of 'tea and scandal'! A talk by Elaine Henderson. 

Saturday 13th June 2026 at 11.30am (during the coffee morning: 10.30am-12.30pm).

For several months, the PPL Development Committee has been working with Le Page Architects to develop proposals for a five-year plan designed to secure the library's future for the next decade and beyond.

We are now in a position to share these initial proposals with the membership and to invite your feedback as we consider progressing the project to the next stage, including applying for planning permission and identifying appropriate sources of funding.

The presentation will begin at 11.30am on 13th June (during the coffee morning) and is expected to last approximately 30 minutes. Members will also be invited to complete a short feedback questionnaire to share their views on the proposals. Responses will be collated during June in advance of the Trustees' meeting in July. 

Friday 19th June at 2pm.

Main Film: The Flying Deuces (1939) starring Laurel & Hardy (HD colourised version).

All the way from the Midwest, Stan (Stan Laurel) and Ollie (Oliver Hardy) find themselves in Paris. When Ollie falls in love with the innkeeper's daughter (Jean Parker), Stan encourages him to propose, which leads to a devastating rejection. After talking to a convincing officer (Reginald Gardiner), Ollie joins the French Foreign Legion to forget her, bringing Stan along. The two are shipped to Morocco, where they soon make a mess of things. When they go AWOL, it only makes matters worse.

followed by:

Sherlock Holmes: The Night Train Riddle (Colourised)

"The Case of the Night Train Riddle" is a 1955 episode of the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes TV series, starring Ronald Howard. It follows Holmes solving the mysterious disappearance of a young boy, Paul, who supposedly vanished from a moving train after fighting with his father, ultimately uncovering a kidnap plot tied to a circus.