Minack Theatre

Rowena Cade (1893-1983) funded, planned and built the outdoor theatre on the cliff face below her home

With the help of two Cornish craftsmen steps were sawn out of the granite and backfilled. When granite became too expensive she devised a recipe with cement and carved intricate Celtic designs into slabs as they dried.

"Tom Angove "Builder's Mate" from 1953, retiring in 1993, recalled how single handed Rowena carried twelve 15ft beams from the shoreline right up to the Theatre. Customs men looking for this "wreck" from a Spanish freighter met her on the beach. Challenged as to whether she had seen the timber, Rowena admitted that she had taken up some wood that morning. She suggested that the men should come and see it. Concluding that such a frail looking woman could not have lifted what they were looking for, they went on their way. "I didn't tell them a lie now did I?" remarked Rowena as she and Tom built the twelve beams into the new dressing rooms." http://www.minack.com/history.htm