Restorica Archive

In 1996 Michael Scurr penned the following article on the restoration of the Old Cape Archives (today the Centre for the Book). It was published in Restorica, the journal of the Simon van der Stel Foundation. Thank you to the University of Pretoria and the Heritage Association of South Africa for giving us permission to publish.

The Old Cape Archives, a National Monument and most prominent architectural landmark in Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town, has now been fully refurbished and restored as the culmination of a two-phase programme commissioned by the Department of Public Works.

The restoration is part of a long-term programme initiated by the PWD during which attention has been deliberately focussed on preserving and revitalising culturally significant buildings throughout South Africa. The completed restoration of the contemporary Union Buildings and the restoration of the Palace of Justice on Church Square, Pretoria, are examples, particularly with regard to similar fine stonework of period detailing. As in the case of the Old Archives, these buildings have also benefited from the guidance of senior PWD architects Cliff Green and Peet Wolmarans.

Architects for the restoration were Rennie and Goddard of Cape Town, who have been involved in such award winning restorations as the East London City Hall, the historic Vergelegen homestead near Somerset West and the National Monuments Council offices in Cape Town. 

Following the moving of the Archives to the former Roeland Street gaol site in recent years, the State-owned "Old Cape Archives" has been occupied by the South...

Forest Hall is an historic estate located in The Crags near Plettenberg Bay. It hosts a spectrum of high end functions including grand weddings and corporate events (click here for some recent pics). In the article below, first published in Restorica in 1977, Patricia Storrar delves into the history of this unique property. Thank you to the Heritage Association of South Africa and the University of Pretoria for giving us permission to publish.

It is impossible to write the story of Forest Hall, a spacious old house standing in the heart of forested land some 23 kilometres east of Plettenberg Bay, without sketching briefly the history of the man who built it more than a century ago. Because it was the character of this man and the background from which he came which determined emphatically the size and style of the house and the setting in which it was placed. 

In June 1847 young William Henry Newdigate, third son of Francis Newdigate and his wife, Lady Barbara Maria Legge, daughter of the third Earl of Dartmouth, arrived to put down his roots in the green Piesang Valley, Plettenberg Bay. A scion of one of the oldest and most distinguished families in Britain, he could trace his ancestry back on the paternal side through a long line of noble Newdigates - among whom titles abounded - to the 15th century. The Newdigate ancestral seat was - and still is today - Arbury Hall, Nuneaton, Warwickshire. William and two of his brothers were born at Astley Castle, the seat of...

In the following article Patricia Storrar provides a brief history of the Harker graves in Plettenberg Bay. The piece was published in the 1977 edition of Restorica, the journal of the Simon van der Stel Foundation (today the Heritage Association of South Africa). Thank you to the University of Pretoria (copyright holders) for giving us permission to publish.

In the second issue of Restorica an appeal was made for assistance in the task of restoring the oldest graves at Plettenberg Bay, those of six members of the Harker family which lie a few metres to the east of Beacon Way, the main road running out of the town towards Port Elizabeth. The effort to restore these graves to some semblance of order and dignity after more than a century of neglect was made by a small committee of four residents of the Bay and the cost was met by private subscription. A low stone wall now encloses the area, the gravestones (all of slate) now rest securely on concrete slabs and the paths between the stones are neatly covered with stone chips to discourage further encroachment of the bush, grass and creepers which previously obscured the site. 

The six members of the Harker family buried here all lived in the first half of the 19th century and all of them died long before St. Peter's Church (Anglican) was built in 1879-80 in the Village of Formosa. All but two in fact, died before the little yellowwood Church of St. Andrew, Redbourn (declared an Historic...

In 1983 J. G. Brand, City Engineer of Cape Town, penned this brief article about Government Avenue, the oldest pedestrian thoroughfare in South Africa. The piece appeared in the 1983 edition of Restorica, the journal of the Simon van der Stel Foundation (today the Heritage Association of South Africa). Thank you to the University of Pretoria (copyright holders) for giving us permission to publish.  

When Simon van der Stel arrived in 1679 he took an immediate interest in the Company's Garden and set about refashioning it. During the re-development he made the central walk broader than it had been previously, thus dividing the Garden into two distinct halves and establishing the Avenue we know today. Before the planting of the English oak, Quercus robur, the Avenue had been planted with several other tree species, including lemon and orange. Oaks were first planted either in van der Stel 's time or shortly thereafter. Although some of the oaks in the Avenue appear ancient it is most unlikely that any date back to his governorship. 

Formerly the oaks planted were all Quercus robur, but because of the seasonal attack of mildew which causes them to deteriorate, it is now policy to use Quercus cerris, the Turkey oak, as a replacement tree. 

Strolling down Government Avenue (The...

In the article below Cathy Robertson tells the story of the meticulous restoration of Onze Molen in Durbanville in the mid 1980s. The article was first published in the 1986 edition of Restorica, the journal of the Simon van der Stel Foundation (today the Heritage Association of South Africa). Thank you to the University of Pretoria (copyright holders) for giving us permission to publish.

One normally associates the romantic vision of windmills, with their sails turning majestically in the wind, with Holland. A portion of the Cadastral map of Cape Town c.1893 indicates that this was a common sight along the Liesbeek and Black valleys too. The most familiar windmills were the truncated-cone tower-mills which were in evidence early in the eighteenth century. Only one South African windmill with wings has survived the ravages of time - Mostert's Mill in Mowbray. It was restored in 1935 by a famous Dutch millwright, Bremer. He left a maintenance manual for adjusting and repairing the mill and this is preserved at the mill. 

There were many watermills and horsemills in the country areas but very few windmills. A few simple tower-mills were erected in the Western Province. The tower of one still stands at Windmeul, Agter-Paarl, the base of another in the district of Malmesbury and a portion of a tower at Durbanville was used as a basis for the reconstruction of Onze Molen. 

This windmill at Durbanville has been reconstructed as the focal point of a building project financed by the Natal...

Dr Bruno Werz from the African Institute for Marine and Underwater Research, Exploration and Education (AIMURE) is leading a team to try and find the wreck of the Haerlam (or Haarlam) - click here for details. The wrecking of the Haerlam is recognised by many as the catalyst that led to the establishment of a refreshment station which later developed into the City of Cape Town. In 1975 Mervyn Emms used various archival sources to estimate the location of the wreck. His findings were published in the first edition of Restorica (1975) and are republished below with the kind permission of the University of Pretoria.

On the 25 March 1647 the Dutch ship Haerlem ran aground in the surf at Table Bay. There is considerable vagueness about the exact position of this wreck and writers generally refer to it as being at or near the mouth of the Salt River. In attempting to assess its position let us look at the evidence of its position as stated by various sources. Here we must however bear in mind that the distances given are rough estimates and that a Dutch mile is actually about three English miles and may be as much as four on land.

Tracing of hydrographical chart by Admiralty 1933 shows wreck of Haerlam

In the diary of Leendert Janssens for March 26 1647...

One of the most striking buildings in Port Elizabeth is the famous Campanile. In the article below, Tennyson Smith Bodill reveals the history behind the creation of this remarkable structure. The piece was originally published in the April 1989 edition of Restorica, the journal of the Simon van der Stel Foundation (today the Heritage Association of South Africa). Thank you to the University of Pretoria (copyright holders) for giving us permission to publish.

South Africa boasts an impressive number of great buildings from most periods of the country's history. It also has many lesser known, but rewarding, examples of regional and vernacular architecture. Situated in Port Elizabeth, the Campanile, which is an adaptation of Florentine architecture, is a worthy contribution to our nation's architectural heritage.

Campanile (The Heritage Portal)

Observing the structure in its original concept and siting, one is struck by its dramatic form - dominating the entrance to the city when approached from the sea. When newly completed, the concept related well to the city which has a mixture of various forms of civic and commercial architecture, interspersed with warehouses.

The first proposal for a memorial tower to commemorate the landing of the British Settlers of 1820, was made in 1904 by the Reverend Alfred E Hall, minister of the Queen Street Baptist Church. At...

The Victoria & Alfred Waterfront is one of the great South African adaptive reuse case studies. Below is an in depth article on the work conducted during the first phase of this landmark project (completed 1990/1). The piece appeared in the 1992 edition of Restorica, the journal of the Simon van der Stel Foundation (today the Heritage Association of South Africa). Thank you to the University of Pretoria (copyright holders) for giving us permission to publish.

The establishment of the historic link between the City of Cape Town and the sea is regarded as a key factor in securing the viability of the city in environmental and cultural terms. The restoration of these historic linkages, the retention of the working harbour, the rehabilitation of individual buildings at the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront (V&AW) and the accommodation of adaptive uses are all regarded as conservation activities in the broader sense and thus worthy of the 1991 Cape Times Centenary Medal for conservation and building rehabilitation. 

The Waterfront has also received the Cape Institute of Architects conservation award for the Pierhead & Portswood Precincts while the number of declared national monuments at the Waterfront has risen from three to eighteen.

The V&AW project provides the forum for organised planning action to restore the physical and cultural ties between city and harbour and the means for a variety of development agencies and professional disciplines to operate towards a widely based common goal.

This symbiotic relationship between shared cultural values and goals and the physical framework established...

Het Posthuys (also known as De Post Huys) in Muizenberg is considered by many to be one of the oldest structures built by European settlers in South Africa. For many years the secret of its age and significance remained hidden until the keen eye of an estate agent and the skills of an historian uncovered the remarkable details in the late 1970s. The article below was written shortly before restoration of the property began (+-1979) and appeared in Restorica, the journal of the Simon van der Stel Foundation (today the Heritage Association of South Africa). Thank you to the University of Pretoria (copyright holders) for giving us permission to publish. Het Posthuys emerged from restoration as a museum which can still be visited today.

Anglo American Corporation is to restore and donate to the nation the oldest existing house in South Africa which was recently discovered in Muizenberg. The building is De Post Huys, a signal blockhouse built as an observation post controlling False Bay and which was completed in 1673, a year before the Castle in Cape Town was occupied. 

Now known as "Stegman's Rus" and situated fifty metres from Muizenberg Station on the main road, the building's history is closely linked to the early history of the Castle and its restoration will be Anglo American's contribution to the 300th anniversary celebrations of the Castle.

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Below is another gem of an article from the Restorica archive. The piece highlights some interesting aspects of the history of the landmark Cape St Francis Lighthouse. Thank you to the University of Pretoria (copyright holders) and the Heritage Association of South Africa (HASA) for giving us permission to publish.

On July 4th 1878, the lamp of Cape St. Francis lighthouse was lit for the first time. Since that day it has sent forth its beam of light to guide mariners along a stretch of coast that has claimed numerous shipwrecks

Site for a lighthouse

According to a report of the Coast Lighthouse Commission dated 1 December 1871, Captain Skead accompanied by Captain Perry R.N. and Lieut. Taylor R.N. set out from Port Elizabeth on 21 November 1871 to inspect Cape St. Francis and vicinity for the purpose of selecting a site for the erection of a lighthouse. Travelling in a "hired van" the party stopped for the night at Van Stadens and arrived at Humansdorp on the 23rd where they were met by the Civil Commissioner, who assisted them to reach the beach near Cape St. Francis. An ox-wagon loaded with tents and camp gear was sent ahead. {Below are a few excerpts from the report:]

... after a rough journey over a very indifferent road, some of which went over precipitous sand hills, we arrived at Mostert's farm house, a small and poor homestead about 2 1/2 miles to the North West of Seal Point, just north of the...