Wednesday 14th May 2025 at 2pm.

£4 for members. £8 for non-members.

In 1464 Maud (Matilda) Courtenay made her last will and testament, her will set out her charitable bequests, while the testament detailed her funeral arrangements. Maud died three years later, and she was buried in the church of St Nicholas Priory, Exeter. These two documents tell us about her death and give some hints about her character, but her life is less well documented.

This talk by Dr Lynda Pidgeon will look at her death and attempt to throw some light on her life.

To guarantee a seat, contact the library at least 24 hours before the event. Otherwise, simply turn up on the day.

Wednesday 28th May 2025 at 2pm.

£4 for members. £8 for non-members.

Plymouth-based Philip Photiou is the author of  Plymouth's Forgotten War. In this illustrated talk he discusses the royalist invasion of Devon in 1643 when Prince Maurice's army invaded Exeter and Dartmouth before the ensuing siege of Plymouth.

To guarantee a seat, contact the library at least 24 hours before the event. Otherwise, simply turn up on the day.

Wednesday 11th June 2025 at 2pm.

£4 for members. £8 for non-members.

A talk by Robert King about the Island's past from Norman ownership after 1066, it's time as a coastal fort defending Plymouth from the Tudors to the end of World War II and as a much loved adventure centre after the War. The talk covers the ownership after the adventure centre closed, the current state of the Island and what the future may hold. Plenty of time for questions afterwards so if there is anything you have ever wanted to about the Island, now is your chance. 

To guarantee a seat, contact the library at least 24 hours before the event. Otherwise, simply turn up on the day.

Wednesday 25th June 2025 at 2pm.

£4 for members. £8 for non-members.

2025 marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth in Hampshire. In her relatively short life she travelled through fourteen English counties, including, between 1801 and 1804, Devon and Dorset. Her experience of both coastal shires appears in her first and last published novels, Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion. 

This lecture by Hazel Jones, a Jane Austen specialist, will feature contemporary maps and other early-nineteenth century travellers' impressions to illustrate the places she visited and to reveal the locations she might have drawn on for the names of fictional houses and villages.

To guarantee a seat, contact the library at least 24 hours before the event. Otherwise, simply turn up on the day.

Wednesday 2nd July 2025 at 2pm.

£4 for members. £8 for non-members.

The Tavistock Subscription Library, now a charity, was formed by four young men; first as a 1796 literary club and then instituted as a public library in 1799. Supported by many townspeople including the Duke and Duchess of Bedford, in 1830 it moved to the purpose-built Court Gate and has been there ever since.

Simon Dell MBE returns to the PPL to give an illustrated talk on the library from the early origins to the present day. The following Saturday (5th July) there will be a book sale at the PPL hosted by Tavistock Subscription Library (see below).

To guarantee a seat, contact the library at least 24 hours before the event. Otherwise, simply turn up on the day.

Saturday 5th July 2025: 10am - 2pm.

Following Simon Dell's talk (above) there will be a book sale on the following Saturday with unwanted items from the Tavistock Library including books on Plymouth. The PPL will have a percentage of the sales.  

Wednesday 23rd July 2025 at 2pm.

£4 for members. £8 for non-members.

The Pinwill sisters were true innovators in becoming professionals in an occupation entirely dominated by men and creating between them one of the most successful ecclesiastical woodcarving companies in the West Country, with work in over 180 churches across Devon and Cornwall and further afield. The company persisted through two world wars and the Great Depression, as well as overcoming the need to adapt to changing architectural styles from Gothic Revival through to Modern. When first Mary and then Ethel left the company, Violet ran the business single-handedly, employing nearly 30 carvers and joiners at the height of its success.

A talk by Dr Helen Wilson, author of The Remarkable Pinwill Sisters 

To guarantee a seat, contact the library at least 24 hours before the event. Otherwise, simply turn up on the day.

Wednesday 30th July 2025 at 2.30pm.

Performance is free with donations for TREVI and HER GAME TOO. 

In February 1921, Sydney Boultwood, owner of picture palaces in Plymouth and Torquay, and his wife Jessie, a champion long distance swimmer, created the first Plymouth Women’s Football Team which played France at Home Park in May 1921 and again in Paris and Le Havre later that year. 

These unpaid girls, tailoresses, waitresses, domestic servants, school teachers, raised hundreds of pounds for local charities and their matches around the South-West attracted crowds of thousands. But they had their critics who viewed such female activity as physically and morally damaging to the gentler sex and their reproductive ability! So, on December 5th 1921, the F.A. issued their edict - football was “unsuitable for females” and hence, put a stranglehold on all the women’s teams nationwide until 1970. 

Script-in-Hand Theatre have created an original play based on research and centred around the Boultwoods and Frank Zanazzi, the team’s amazing trainer, who trained the women on Whitsand Bay not just to kick a ball, but to be as skilful as “Grecian dancers.” 

Join us in celebrating this important piece of our city’s history and these pioneering young women who laid the foundations for our Argyle Women of today. 

Written by Jenny and Paul Shryane.

Performances are free with donations for TREVI and HER GAME TOO.

To guarantee a seat, contact the library at least 24 hours before the event. Otherwise, simply turn up on the day.

Saturday 2nd August 2025 at 2pm.

Free for members. £4 for non-members.

Join us for an informal afternoon with PPL Patron Babs Horton. She will read from a selection of her works, talk about her writing career, and answer questions. Refreshments provided.

MORE DETAILS TO COME.

To guarantee a seat, contact the library at least 24 hours before the event. Otherwise, simply turn up on the day.

Wednesday 27th August 2025 at 2pm.

£4 for members. £8 for non-members.

Join Dr Nicci Wakeham, Associate Lecturer of Art History at the University of Plymouth for a talk at the PPL. She shares her findings on the Cottonian Collection, and Charles Rogers, it's eighteenth-century curator.

To guarantee a seat, contact the library at least 24 hours before the event. Otherwise, simply turn up on the day.

Saturday 20th September 2025 at 2pm.

FREE for all - Heritage Open Days event.

Ernest Francis Penrose, 'Pen', born and raised in Plymouth, claimed that the history and geography of Plymouth "gave some of us an essentially outward vision". Seeing action during the battles of the Somme, Passchendaele, Cambrai and Ypres confirmed his internationalist outlook and he devoted his life to the building of international institutions, peace and understanding.

This illustrated talk by Angela and Trevear Penrose will cover Pen's extraordinary life and how, as an academic, a diplomat and writer, he became involved in many of the most formative moments of the 20th century.

To guarantee a seat, contact the library at least 24 hours before the event. Otherwise, simply turn up on the day.

Wednesday 12th November 2025 at 2pm.

£4 for members. £8 for non-members.

A blue plaque in Turnchapel, Plymouth reads: 'On his return from India, T.E. Lawrence under the assumed name of Shaw was posted to a flying boat squadron at R.A.F. Mount Batten.' Find out more as speaker Ursula Myers returns to the PPL for an illustrated talk. 

To guarantee a seat, contact the library at least 24 hours before the event. Otherwise, simply turn up on the day.

Wednesday 26th November 2025 at 2pm.

£4 for members. £8 for non-members.

Chris Robinson (MBE and PPL Patron) returns to the PPL to talk about his new book 'A History of Plympton', the first attempt at a 'comprehensive' history of Plympton St Maurice, St Mary, Colebrook and Underwood, plus the many more recent developments. Chronicling well over a thousand years of the area's back story, this illustrated talk gives an account of what was 'a borough town when Plymouth was just a fuzzy down!' 

To guarantee a seat, contact the library at least 24 hours before the event. Otherwise, simply turn up on the day.

Wednesday 25th February 2026 at 2pm.

£4 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.  

To guarantee a seat, contact the library at least 24 hours before the event. Otherwise, simply turn up on the day.