Newsflash: you can’t visit Lawrence House. Well, what’s the point of the team at Proper Cornwall recommending it then? Wait, another newsflash: you can visit the pop-up Lawrence House Museum nearby. Thank goodness for that then.
In a nutshell, Lawrence House is a fine Georgian abode in Launceston, with a handful of ornate themed rooms over three floors alongside a garden that boasts ace vistas. Some of the rooms cover exhibitions on local history, toys, a scale model of an old railway station and famous people who have lived in the Cornish town like the co-discoverer of Neptune, John Couch Adams, and local poet Charles Causley. But, as we said earlier, it’s not open.
Lawrence House Museum closed during COVID-19 in March 2020 and, according to its team, it was damaged over the following months by damp. It’s meant that the grade II listed Georgian house has been shut for repairs ever since. Thankfully, though, the pop-up museum opened at the Merchant’s House at 11a High Street in Launceston in September 2021 and it’s been welcoming visitors ever since. A lot of the museum’s collection is still being exhibited to the public at the pop-up between every Tuesday and Saturday.
Guided tours around the Merchant’s House are on the menu at the pop-up museum as well as a rolling programme of local history exhibitions. There are also talks that are arranged at the venue, which is home to an array of objects that have been brought over from Lawrence House, including old costumes, a miniature ship made out of bone, a 19th century jukebox and old toys and puppets that’ll make you giggle like you’re a toddler. So, no ornate Georgian house to wander for the moment. That’s a shame but we thank the Lawrence team for this fab little pop-up museum. You can’t hold history back in Launceston.