Penlee House Gallery & Museum


This small museum is ideal for a primer on the artistic heritage of West Cornwall. It has a fine collection of paintings by artists of the Newlyn School (including Stanhope and Elizabeth Forbes, Walter Langley and Lamorna Birch) and hosts regular exhibitions inside a handsome 19th-century building. The nearby Penlee Gardens are well worth a stroll.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby attractions

1. Statue of Humphry Davy

0.15 MILES

This statue honours Penzance's most famous son, chemist and inventor Humphry Davy, who invented the miners' safety lamp and discovered the elements…

2. Chapel Street

0.17 MILES

The cream of Penzance's heritage architecture can be seen along Chapel St, which is lined with a wealth of beautifully preserved Georgian buildings.

3. Exchange

0.18 MILES

Housed in Penzance's former telecoms building, this gallery hosts regular exhibitions of contemporary art. It's the sister gallery to the Newlyn Art…

4. Egyptian House

0.19 MILES

The Egyptian House looks like a bizarre cross between a Georgian townhouse and an Egyptian sarcophagus and was originally built for a wealthy mineralogist…

5. Union Hotel

0.2 MILES

A historic pub on Chapel St, the first place in England to hear news of Admiral Lord Nelson's death after the Battle of Trafalgar.

6. Newlyn Art Gallery

0.76 MILES

On the edge of Newlyn, this historic gallery was founded in 1895 to display the work of the artists of the Newlyn School, but since 2007 the gallery's…

7. Trengwainton

1.41 MILES

Two miles north of Penzance near Madron is the walled garden of Trengwainton, which has a subtropical collection of ferns, shrubs, magnolias and…

8. Tremenheere Sculpture Garden

2.01 MILES

This inventive garden opened just outside Penzance in 2012. The landscaped gardens sit in a sheltered valley awash with artworks and installations: look…