January 2024
We have been busy over the past few months with publications. The group has reprinted 300 Years of Penwith Farms, now once more available to purchase here. You can also buy this and our other books from local shops and the Morrab Library.
Member Jean Nankervis has published the second volume of her History of Zennor. Selling for £25, the book is appearing in local shops in time for Christmas. It explores what life was like for the inhabitants of Zennor in the first half of the seventeenth century, using information provided in their wills and list of goods on death. These probate records cover 27 families which was half the population. The book also investigates the effect of the Civil War and includes a foreword by Des Hannigan, alphabetical list of families, list of farms, glossary, bibliography, statistics and pie charts.
Illustration used for the cover of History of Zennor vol 2
We have also added a new, seasonal Penwith Paper to the site; written by member Linda Collins about the local West Gallery music tradition. Linda is a singer herself, and local readers may remember her contribution to the 2022 Penzance Literary Festival launch of Jenny Dearlove’s book, Women to the Rescue – copies of which are still available to buy from the Hypatia Trust.
In the New Year, we are offering another chance to see the group’s 2023 Penzance Literary Festival presentation, now re-badged as Improving Lives – Uplifting Stories from Historic Penwith. Life is better than it used to be, as group members Jenny Dearlove, Linda Camidge and Susan Soyinka will demonstrate in their short illustrated talks on different topics. The event takes place at 2.30 pm on Monday 15th January at the Magpies Football Club, Penzance where we will be the guests of Penzance U3A
Staying with the ‘live presentations’ theme, group member Linda Camidge and her theatrical colleague Jak Stringer will be performing The Laughter of Friends - their show about two local journalists who befriended Dylan Thomas in the late 1930s, based on an unpublished memoir – at Landithy Hall Madron on Monday 8th January at 7.30 pm, as guests of Madron WI.
And just in case you’d like to know what we all look like, here is the Penwith Local History Group enjoying its Christmas outing at the Pirate Inn, Alverton – before returning to their groaning bookshelves, overheated laptops and lengthy ‘to do’ lists for future archive explorations.
The PLHG temporarily shut down their computers, set aside their notebooks and enjoy a Big Dinner
Merry Christmas, one and all – and a happy and productive 2024
PLHG publications can be purchased online here or perused in the Morrab Library.
Penwith Local History Group
Edited by
Sally Corbet
price £10
plus p&p
Photo Glyn Richards