Cornwall (Lennard Bequest) Reading Party 2026

The fifty-third annual Lennard Bequest reading party (led by Alice Baldock and Peter Thonemann) was held, as in many recent years, in the glorious surroundings of Lamledra House on the south Cornish coast. Peter Thonemann recounts how events unfolded:

The night before our departure saw a joyful reunion of almost a hundred Wadham reading party alumni for dinner in hall, and we were waved off on the Saturday morning by an unusually large gathering of slightly bleary-eyed Lamledra veterans outside the front of college.

Applications were invited from all current undergraduates, and competition for places was particularly intense this year. The thirteen successful applicants were a mix of third- and fourth-year students, across a notably broad range of subjects. Disciplinary cross-fertilisation has long been a hallmark of the reading party, and it is a pleasure to report how many participants can now only slightly misspell their own name in Akkadian. As always, the week was vividly shaped by the examples of great figures from years gone by: the late Reggie Lennard, whose bequest continues to fund most of the costs of the reading party; Ray Ockenden, founder and guiding spirit of the reading party for many years; and, in one of this year’s more unexpected turns of events, Joey Essex.

Seven hours a day were reserved for quiet self-directed work, and most participants took the opportunity to get a serious head start on Finals revision. The linguistic niceties of Pablo Neruda, Troilus and Criseyde, Ovid and James Hogg were unpicked, and almost everyone ended the week with an improved grasp of animals on national flags. Sunny days saw agreeable excursions to Hemmick Beach and along the south-west coast path to Mevagissey. Despite near sub-zero water temperatures, almost everyone swam in the sea at least once, and the cooler and rainier afternoons were enlivened with knitting, table tennis, wood-whittling, and rounds of Bananagrams.

The challenges of cooking for fifteen people have seldom been met with such effortless competence. Highlights of a superb week’s dining included Holly Beckman’s unimprovable lemon drizzle cake, Thomas Fennell’s Thai green curry, surprising numbers of bananas, a stubbornly cold bottle of Glühwein, and beans. An estimated 40% of the daily mountain of washing up was completed single-handed by Natasha Laidlaw, and the reading party owes a collective debt of gratitude to Stevie Miller for not knocking out the entire south-west grid with a rogue bagel.

Evening activities offered opportunities for extracurricular enrichment. Megan James won the dictionary game by a staggeringly broad margin, and Noah Mitchell proved, regrettably, to be one of the less talkative participants in two vintage games of Mafia. The reading party’s secret pop genius, Juliet Tyrer-Bragg, provided a magnificent musical backdrop to a magical Thursday-night bonfire on Vault Beach, where Abbie Pole’s knowledge of knot-tying found unanticipated new practical applications. Few innocent players of the traditional late-night round of Murder in the Dark can ever have accounted for their movements quite as unconvincingly as Gala Wesson. Theo Wright led the reading party in a series of lively sausage-related dances, Arthur Bellamy struggled to blow his nose, Elisa Kline-Sanchez displayed laser-like detective skills across a range of homicidal contexts, and Izzy Carey-Young helpfully augmented our collective knowledge of prehistoric dietary preferences.

Overall this was truly one of the great reading parties of recent years: full of music, laughter, dancing, hard work, generosity and kindness. Next year’s reading party will be advertised in January 2027.