PENLEE House Gallery and Museum in Penzance is celebrating the people of west Cornwall at work and play in its largest photographic exhibition to date, opening on January 11.

Drawing on Penlee House's extensive photographic archive, the exhibition will show 130 photos covering a variety of themes.

Scenes captured by both amateurs and professionals from the early days of photography in the Victorian era, such as Gibson and Sons and Robert Preston, will sit alongside nostalgic images by press photographer Harry Penhaul from the 1940s and 1950s and more recent work by Phil Monckton and Vince Bevan.

The show covers more than 150 years of photography, with the earliest image on display dating from 1858 and the most recent from 2011.

The exhibition has been curated by John Edwards and fellow volunteers from the Penlee House Photographic Research Group have undertaken hours of research to discover who is in the photographs and the locations that they depict.

Among the many scenes captured are a record pilchard catch, an extremely thirst haymaker, Humphry Davy's statue getting a clean, snow in Cornwall, a 1950s birthday party and a visit from Coco the Clown.

Some of the most striking images show men, women and children at work in the key Cornish industries of fishing, farming and mining.

Penlee House's curator, Katie Herbert, said: "The images are a remarkable depiction of the hard work that enabled Cornish industry to thrive throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries."

The images of people at play in west Cornwall are just as impressive, including days out on the beach, tea treats, parties, plays and cinema.

The pictures show adults and children making the most of precious leisure time and include some enigmatic works from the 1930s by relatively unknown photographer Geraldine Underell.

Who knows, you might even spot one of your relatives in the photos.

For a unique gift, visitors can even order reproductions of many of the images in the exhibition, which can be printed and shipped to any address in the UK.

Alongside the exhibition, Penlee House, which is run by Penzance Council, will be running free family activities every Saturday afternoon from 2.30pm to 3.30pm.

There is no need to book, just drop in and create a unique artwork to take home.

The exhibition will be displayed in all of the ground floor galleries, with a selection of Newlyn School paintings on display in Gallery 5.

The event runs from January 11 until March 14 from 10am to 4.30pm, last admission 4pm.

Admission is £5 for adults and £4 for concessions.

Penzance Pass holders and under-18s are free.