MineArchive
Gonamena (2009)
| Category | Literature |
|---|---|
| Dates | Staged at Sterts Theatre 2009, commissioned by the Caradon Hill Area Heritage Project for the Phoenix 100 celebrations; Echoes of Gonamena, a dramatic reading by original cast members, marking twenty years of Cornish Mining World Heritage status |
A community play by Simon Parker, staged at Sterts Theatre on Bodmin Moor in 2009 with more than a hundred local performers, telling one family's fate through the boom and bust of the Caradon copper mines.
The mining history in this record
Gonamena is a place on the flank of Caradon Hill in east Cornwall — an inclined plane of the Liskeard and Caradon Railway worked from 1846 to 1877, running up past the engine houses of South Caradon mine. The play took its name from that ground.
Written by Simon Parker and commissioned by the Caradon Hill Area Heritage Project to coincide with the Phoenix 100 celebrations, the large-scale open-space play was staged at Sterts Theatre on Bodmin Moor in 2009. It was directed by Simon Harvey with a score by Simon Dobson, and involved more than a hundred local performers, musicians and technicians of all ages alongside professionals. Its subject is the story of one family through the copper boom and the bust that followed it in the middle and later nineteenth century, when the Caradon mines made and unmade the district.
People
Simon Parker, writer; Simon Harvey, director; Simon Dobson, composer; more than a hundred local performers, musicians and technicians.
Legacy today
Gonamena has had an afterlife. Original cast members reunited for a one-off dramatic reading, Echoes of Gonamena, celebrating south-east Cornwall's mining heritage and the twentieth anniversary of the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site, staged in the Barn Theatre at Sterts. The script was also published as a book. Simon Parker, a writer and publisher based in Cornwall, is known for work rooted in Cornish landscape and history.
Recorded claims
Individual factual claims, each tagged with how solidly it's grounded and attached to the source(s) that support it. Where sources disagree, both are kept.
- Gonamena, written by Simon Parker, was staged as a large-scale open-space community play at Sterts Theatre on Bodmin Moor in 2009. (documented fact) 1,2
- The play was commissioned by the Caradon Hill Area Heritage Project to coincide with the Phoenix 100 celebrations. (documented fact) 1
- It tells the story of one family's fate during the boom and bust of copper mining around Caradon in the middle and later nineteenth century. (documented fact) 1,2
- The production was directed by Simon Harvey, scored by Simon Dobson, and involved more than a hundred local performers, musicians and technicians of all ages. (documented fact) 1
- Original cast members reunited for a one-off dramatic reading, Echoes of Gonamena, marking south-east Cornwall's mining heritage and twenty years of Cornish Mining World Heritage status. (documented fact) 2
- The play was published as a book under Simon Parker's name. (documented fact) 3
Mines
- Phoenix United Mine — Cornwall
The play was commissioned for the Phoenix 100 celebrations, which marked a century since the mine's last great venture. - South Caradon Mine — Cornwall
Gonamena is the incline on the flank of Caradon Hill beside this mine's engine houses, and the Caradon copper boom the play dramatises is South Caradon's.
Sources
- (secondary) Gonamena (Hilary Orange) — Hilary Orange
- (secondary) Echoes of Gonamena — Cornwall 365
- (secondary) Simon Parker — Scryfa
Record created: 18 September 2026 · Last researched: 24 September 2026