The hidden work keeping Rowena Cade’s Minack Theatre on the cliff

Somewhere inside the arches and pillars of the Minack Theatre there is an old bedframe.

Rowena Cade used whatever came to hand when she began building an open-air theatre in a gully on a Cornish cliff. Nearly a century on, the people looking after it are still working with what she left them.

With the theatre nearing its centenary and more than 200,000 visitors a year, the team is balancing two jobs at once. Conserve her legacy, and keep it running as a modern theatre and visitor attraction. Much of that work goes on behind every performance without audiences ever seeing it, and climate change and the pressures of tourism are increasingly shaping it.

📷Rowena Cade making pillars

A theatre made of sand

Rowena Cade built the theatre’s superstructure from concrete she mixed herself, using sand from Porthcurno beach. She reinforced the arches and pillars with whatever came to hand, the bedframe included.

Untreated beach sand has a high salt and shell content. Over time that has eaten away at the metal supports inside, and cracks have developed. The surface has degraded too, blurring the intricate designs she etched into the concrete.

Today’s team at the Minack draw on many of the same techniques she developed to preserve and repair her original designs.

📷Lynn Batten making a pillar

A winter spent on concrete

Maintenance Manager Lynn Batten spends each winter repairing the concrete structures.

“When Miss Cade built the Minack, our theatre seasons were shorter and the visitors fewer,” she said. “The challenge is maintaining all the seats, pillars, walkways, and railings, whilst welcoming the thousands of visitors that want to come and see it.”

📷Abseiling down the cliff

Gardening on the edge

The cliffside microclimate supports an unusual range of exotic species, including Aeonium, Aloe, Crassula, Echium, Protea and the striking Cape Silver Tree.

It is also one of the few gardens in Britain where abseiling is a practical requirement. Some of the planting pockets are tucked amongst the granite where there is no other way to reach them.

There is no shelter from the salt-laden easterly winds, and productions move through the space for much of the year. So the garden is far from a quiet backdrop. Wetter winters and drier summers are now prompting the team to rethink established planting strategies.

📷Rowena Cade building dressing rooms

From one rough week to all year round

Rowena Cade’s theatre has always adapted to changing needs. It started with a rough, single-week production in the 1930s. Now it runs all year, with sound, lighting, dressing rooms, a café and public toilets.

Since her death in 1983, the theatre’s trustees have carried on the same approach, conserving what she built while allowing it to function as a working venue.

📷Technical Manager - Simon Hutchings

“We might as well be a cruise ship”

The Minack keeps pace with modern technical standards for performers. But the stage equipment has to contend with exposure to the worst of the elements.

Technical Manager Simon Hutchings explained: “We are a marine environment. We might as well be a cruise ship sailing the seas. That’s the level of maintenance we have to cope with.”

📷Gardening on the Edge - Jeff Rowe Head Gardener

Planning around the weather

Weather has always shaped the Minack’s story, and increasingly volatile seasons make planning harder than it used to be.

An early hot spell brings visitors sooner. A wet September keeps them away. And each winter brings its own round of repairs and restoration to keep the site in good order for the season ahead.

Even so, the team are full of energy and optimism for the future.

Director Rebecca Thomas summed up their ambition for the theatre: “The Minack exists because of the love it arouses among those who work here and those who come to see it. That’s why we’re committed to preserving, restoring and improving this unique place, so it endures for another century, and future generations will continue to be inspired by the legacy of Rowena Cade.”

📷Rowena Cade building the Gully Seats

📷Gardening on the edge - Claire Batten Head Gardener