Play Video about Painting of Newlyn by Ken Howard

About the Archive

The Newlyn Archive is a collection of material about Newlyn, Lamorna and West Cornwall Art. The purpose of the archive is to collect, preserve, store and share stories, documents, pictures, films and audio material relating to these areas. From 2017 the Archive has been housed in the Admiralty Boathouse, 23 The Strand, Newlyn TR18 5HL. This grade 2 listed building was built by the Admiralty as a Coastguards Boathouse in 1900 and became the main Newlyn Post Office in 1925. When the Post Office closed in 2016, the Newlyn Harbour Commissioners (who own the building) made the ground floor available to the Newlyn Archive. There is a notice Board outside the entrance to the Boathouse which shows the opening times of the archive.

Friends of the Newlyn Archive who pay an annual subscription or take out life membership are actively involved in creating and fashioning the Newlyn Archive by staffing the Boathouse, running the Open Days, adding to the archive resources, or taking responsibility for research in particular areas of the archive.

Friends of the Archive elect a committee of volunteers that includes a chairman, treasurer, secretary, and six ordinary committee members, four of whom take responsibility for membership, the film and audio library, family history and telephone contact. The archivist is an ex officio member of the committee.

Regular Open Days with free admission are held at Trinity Centre, Chywoone Hill. They focus on a chosen theme, and enable people to enjoy and learn from the archive holdings. Dates and topics are available on the website.

A wide range of people including young people are involved with the Archive. When our new Centre at the Boathouse was launched in 2017 there was a special day set aside for a visit from children at Newlyn School.

We also work closely with the local community on important heritage projects. We open the Boathouse for the annual Newlyn Fish Festival. We have collaborated with the Sensory Trust to identify walks around Newlyn that identify sights, sounds, smells and points of interest that will be used in an app for disabled people. We are working with the Ocean Pride Project that hopes to relaunch the old sailing lugger PZ 134.