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2727AC/Environmental Rehabilitation/Farm Morgenster 772/Site 1

Group

SiteHeader

SiteID: 

130029

FullSiteName: 

Original mine office building

SiteCategory: 

PropertyIsSite: 

No

ReferenceList: 

CitationReferenceType
De Jong R, 2019. Voorspoed Mine decommissioning.

Relationships: 

Group content visibility: 

Use group defaults

Author: 

Ethe.Mngceke

FeaturedSite?: 

NO
Post date: 07/04/2020
Site Comments:

The Mine Office was built as a long, narrow rectangular structure (8 040 x 23 589 metric or approx 78' x 26' Imperial; the proportion is therefore 1:3) of kiln baked face brick in English bond, on a plinth of roughly formed rectangular hard stone, with a hipped roof of galvanised corrugated sheet metal, and with a surrounding lean-to verandah and a colonnade of square timber posts at an interval of 3500. The office was sub-divided into 12 cellular rooms of equal dimension, forming 2 rows of 6 offices back to back, the central 4 offices on either side having a timber framed door on the side of each office with an eccentrically placed vertically proportioned timber framed sash window, and with the 2 outer offices on either side having their windows on the narrow facades of the structure, centrally placed in each office. The top of window openings was formed by a flat arch of voussoir stones and with a steel flat bar reinforcing below the arch, acting as permanent formwork - the bottom of the window had a brick window sill. One complete window that is still in situ indicates that each sash of the timber window had 2 rows of 3 cottage panes, making 12 in total for the two sashes. Openings for the door frames were formed by the inner layer of bricks being rebated. There are no doors remaining, but they would probably have been panelled doors with a tall upper and squat lower panel.

The outer and inner walls of the office building were built of a double brick skin, the thickness of a full brick. Reinforcing exists in the form of sheet metal bands in between bncks at every 4_5 th course. Two layers of brickwork were laid (one header, one stretcher - the header bond layer becomes the stretcher on the adjoining facade, and so also with the stretcher layer) above the plinth and below a damp barrier of galv sheet metal, with a bent down drip on the outside. The interior floor was finished to the same height as the damp barrier. The interior floors were of concrete with thin cement screed. A concrete sill was provided at each door. The exterior verandah floor is deemed to have been of cow dung (the material remains are in situ in one location, and no traces of concrete flooring or of rubble was found on site) with an edging of roughly formed hard stone. Concrete footings were cast in situ for the timber verandah posts - these foetings were located hard up to the Inner surface of the outer edge of stone. The inside walls of the offices were of a full brick width, plastered with cement plaster, and provided with a profiled timber skirting and a profiled (Cyma recta and reversa) timber cornice. A long timber rail with clothes hooks ran on the inner (n-s) wall of each office, and was fixed on top of the plaster work with bolts. The ceiling was finished with tongue and groove timber planking, with the era's trademark groove close to the tongue side of the plank.
The roof structure of the main inner building was constructed of a nailed timber truss made up of regular timber sections (see detail on drawings), resting on a timber roof plate the size of a brick in section, The verandah's roof was constructed of a separate timber beam, nailed to the roof truss on one side and resting on a timber beam on the other (While no beam was found on site, common sense as well as the existence of a cut-out on the verandah beam provides the rudimentary clue for the existence and size of the outer beam that rested on the square timber posts of the verandah). The roof edge was finished off with a formed timber fascia. The connection of the verandah roof and the outside wall of the office building had a formed timber cover plate similar to the fascia. The galvanised sheeting was nailed onto rectangular timber purlins, the section of which was positioned flat rather than upright. There was no gutter. 

The original fabric of the building is in a very dilapidated and deteriorated state. The roof sheeting is rusted through and many sheets of the verandah have been removed, the timber of the trusses have been removed, the beams of the verandah have been removed bar one, the window sashes have been removed from the frames bar one, and no timber doors remain, The timber of the window- and door frames is in a very deteriorated condition. The ceiling and cornice of only one office remains. There is only one small section of skirting remaining in one office. Concrete floors are damaged.

 
 

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