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)