Contact Artefacts please if you have any comments or more information regarding this record.

Menu Home Upfront Now Up Books Towns Structures People Firms Lexicon

Van Oudtshoorn Road, No 17 - Historic House Swellendam, Western Cape

Date: n.d. Type: Homestead Status: Extant Street: 17 Van Oudtshoorn Road

A T-shaped and thatched house with a long front- and straight end-gables. It now has steel windows and a modern veranda. This is one of a group of buildings, in the old nucleus immediately north-west of the Coornlands River bridge, which once served as dwellings for drostdy officials. Hendrik Swellengrebel, jr, son of the one-time governor (he had gone to the Netherlands for his studies, and settled there, after his youth in the Cape), paid a visit to the country of his birth in 1776, accompanied by the artist Schumacher. In his diary, there is an entry: 'Een half quartier van hier is het huis van den Secretaris, en dat van den bode, beide met tuinen'. This was the messenger's house. [Fransen p458] All truncated references not fully cited below are those of Joanna Walker's original text and cited in full in the 'Bibliography' entry of the Lexicon.