Stellenbosch Museum
| Village Museum | |
 | |
| Established | 23 March 1962 |
|---|---|
| Location | 18 Ryneveld Street, Stellenbosch, South Africa |
| Coordinates | 33°56′15″S 18°51′46″E / 33.9374°S 18.8629°ECoordinates: 33°56′15″S 18°51′46″E / 33.9374°S 18.8629°E |
| Type | Cultural history museum |
| Curator | Debbie Gabriels (Museum Manager) |
| Owner | Board of Trustees |
| Nearest car park | The Avenue, in front of Agricultural Hall |
| Website |
www |
Stellenbosch Museum is a cultural history museum in the centre of Stellenbosch, South Africa. It was proclaimed a museum on 23 March 1962 and is a province-aided museum which receives support from the Government of the Western Cape. The museum includes four period houses which depict the way people lived and the difference in architectural styles over the periods illustrated (the Village Museum). It also includes a historical powder magazine and a toy museum.
Schreuder House
This house is the first period house in the museum complex and is furnished according to the period c. 1709. The house was built in August 1707 by Sebastian Schreuder, who was a German messenger of the court of the Dutch East India Company.[1] This modest pioneer cottage has a thatched roof and clay floor. The house has some unusual windows as glass was a rare commodity and had to be imported from Holland. The colonists therefore developed a system of stretching linen or gauze tightly over a frame and using beeswax or similar substances to seal the cloth against the elements. During a hard downpour, the housewife simply closed the outside shutters; in fine weather the catches were released, the whole frame was lifted out, and fresh air was let in.[2] The house was declared a monument in 1974 and is currently listed as a Grade II Western Cape provincial heritage site.[3]
Bletterman House
The second house in the museum complex depicts the period of c. 1789. The house was originally built by Hendrik Lodewyk Bletterman, Landdrost (Magistrate) of Stellenbosch from 1785 to 1795. This dwelling is a Cape Dutch H-shaped house and one of the examples of a gabled house from the 18th century.[4] The site on which the present Bletterman House is situated was bought by Hendrik Lodewyk Bletterman in 1787. The Hertzog plan of 1817 shows a building on this site, but it is assumed that Bletterman built the house sometime before that date since he would have required accommodation after he vacated the Drostdy in 1775. After his death in 1824 the house was sold to the Landdrost and Heemraden and was converted into offices and a courtroom, becoming the "Stellenbosch Public Offices". The outbuilding was renovated and equipped with 50 school benches and served as a school for slaves. The school was officially opened in September 1825 with Erasmus Smit as teacher. It would appear that after Bletterman's death the main house was never used as a residence again. The Stellenbosch Police used the buildings as their headquarters from about 1879 until 1969 when it was acquired by the Stellenbosch Museum. [5] The house is listed as a provincial heritage site.[6]
Grosvenor House
This splendid old mansion is the third house restored by the museum and depicts the period c. 1803. The house is hence over two hundred years old and known as the ancestral home of the Neethling family. The site on which it stands was granted to Christiaan Ludolph Neethling in 1781 and a year later he had built a double-storey house on the property. Successive owners kept the house virtually unaltered. In 1872 Sir Christoffel J. Brand, first speaker of the Cape House of Assembly, became the new owner. After his death in 1876 William Collins of Bath, England, bought the property which remained in the possession of his wife until 1941. The Collins family named the building Grosvenor House and converted it into a guest house.[7]
Grosvenor House was the building in which the Stellenbosch Museum was located at the time of its proclamation. The building has been restored to illustrate the period c. 1800 – c. 1830 when Willem Herold and his family lived there and as with many of the other properties of the museum the house has been declared a provincial heritage site.[8]
Individual items of furniture reflect the increasing influence of English taste on local furniture design after the second British occupation of the Cape in 1806. Neo-classicism was then the height of fashion. The interior doors have stinkwood frames and yellowwood panels. There are unusual shutters of the same wood and a heavy front door of solid teak. The facade of the house was designed in the classical style with fluted pilasters running up to support a wide cornice. The classicism is repeated in the treatment of the pedimented front door, which surrounds a plaster-work a palm tree, the symbol on the Stellenbosch Church seal.
The plants in the garden of this house are those that would have been popular during the period.
O.M. Bergh House
This Victorian house (now a provincial heritage site[9]) was first owned by Christiaan Krynauw who is presumed to have erected a new T-shaped dwelling on the site. Olof Marthinus Bergh bought the property in 1836. He was born in Cape Town in 1792 and was Deputy-Sheriff of Stellenbosch.
An upper storey was added to the house during the second half of the 19th century. The house is furnished to reflect the interior of a typical middle-class Stellenbosch home during the period 1840 – 1880, more-or-less the time it was occupied by Bergh and his family. Heavy mahogany furniture in the prevailing English taste was very fashionable at the time and the Victorian penchant for clutter often made it difficult to move about in the drawing room. Wallpaper and family portraits are further indications of how sombre interior decoration was at the time – particularly after the Great Exhibition in 1851. The garden is laid out in the style of the period with roses and other shrubs that were popular during the mid-19th century.
V.O.C. Kruithuis (Powder Magazine)
In the turbulent last quarter of the eighteenth century, the Governor and the Political Council at Cape Town came to the conclusion that it was desirable to store ammunition at Stellenbosch. Stellenbosch was also allowed cannon and guns and the gunpowder and ammunition necessary to ward off an enemy attack and a suitable building for storing this material had to be constructed. The consent of the governing council of the Dutch East India Company (V.O.C.) in the Netherlands was duly applied for and received and authority was given to build the arsenal or magazine. On 7 October 1776 the Landdrost called for tenders for erection of the building. That of Philip Hartog and Lambert Fick for 9000 guilders was accepted and on 5 May 1777 the building was completed.[10]
Stellenbosch has always been a peaceful town and not once during its 300 years of existence have guns been fired as an act of war. The V.O.C. Kruithuis therefore soon lost its strategic military value and in less than seventy years became the site of the local Friday market. After serving as a market house for almost a century it was restored by the Stellenbosch Municipality in 1936. The building was proclaimed a National Monument (now a provincial heritage site[11] ) on 10 May 1940 and in 1943 was opened to the public as a small Africana Museum. The Museum did not exist for very long and there were many years during which the building remained locked and inaccessible to the public. In 1971 the Municipality agreed to allow the Stellenbosch Museum to take over the building for display of its collection of fire-arms, cannon, military uniforms, etc.
The V.O.C. Kruithuis is unique in South Africa as it is the only remaining powder magazine in the country dating from the days of the Dutch East India Company and it is a symbol of the town's rich and varied architectural heritage.[12]
Publications
The Stellenbosch Museum has published the following books:
Hans Fransen, 1970 The Cape Chair
Ma Cook, 1973 The Cape Kitchen
Barry Berkowitz, 1976 The Cape Gunsmith
Marius Le Roux, 1982 The Cape Copper Smith
MJ Baraitser and WD Malherbe, 1985 The Cape House and its Interior
James Walton,1985 Cape Dovecots and Fowl-Runs
SM Hofmeyr,1992 Carl Otto Hager van Stellenbosch
FDF and W Malherbe, 1999 Hajb Hammerschmidt: Medical Practitioner in Stellenbosch 1858-1860
References
- ↑ p29, Coetzee, C. Eikestad, Cape Town: Struik, 1976
- ↑ Footloose in Stellenbosch: A Visitor's Guide by Hannes Meiring and Ters van Huyssteen
- ↑ "9/2/084/0027 – Schreuder House, 10 Ryneveld Street, Stellenbosch". South African Heritage Resources Agency. Retrieved 1 October 2013.
- ↑ The Old Buildings of the Cape by Hans Fransen
- ↑ Fransen H, Stellenbosch Drie Eeue
- ↑ "9/2/084/0050 – Bletterman House, Plein Street, Stellenbosch". South African Heritage Resources Agency. Retrieved 1 October 2013.
- ↑ p128, Coetzee, C. Eikestad, Cape Town: Struik, 1976
- ↑ "9/2/084/0051 – Grosvenor House, Drostdy Street, Stellenbosch". South African Heritage Resources Agency. Retrieved 1 October 2013.
- ↑ "9/2/084/0106 – Bergh House, 11 Drostdy Street, Stellenbosch". South African Heritage Resources Agency. Retrieved 16 September 2013.
- ↑ p16, Coetzee, C. Eikestad, Cape Town: Struik, 1976
- ↑ "9/2/084/0063 – Powder Magazine, Blom Street, Stellenbosch". South African Heritage Resources Agency. Retrieved 1 October 2013.
- ↑ Stellenbosch Museum
Literature
- Meiring H and van Husyssteen T, Footloose in Stellenbosch: A Visitor's Guide
- Coetzee, C. Eikestad, Cape Town: Struik, 1976
- Stellenbosch 1679–1929, Stellenbosch Municipality: Stellenbsoch, 1929
See also
External links
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