Sites

The site comprises a historic farmstead which is located in the centre of the farm at the base of a ridge. Although the entire site is in a very poor condition, a number of components could be identified including the farmhouse, garage, cottage and milking sheds. The farmhouse is a multi-roomed rectangular building of which only the walls still stand. It comprises a total of eight rooms including two bedrooms, one living room, one kitchen, one bathroom, one possible pantry as well as a closed veranda. In front of the bedroom and possible pantry a short hallway is located. While almost all the doors, windows, roofing, ceilings, floors and other removable fittings and details of the house have been removed, it was possible to observe that the window and door frames were of wood whereas sections of the floors could also be identified. The two bedrooms and living room evidently had wooden parquet flooring while the kitchen had a vinyl floor. The hallway had contemporary wooden floors. All the inner and outer walls (except those on the veranda extension) comprise a double row of bricks. The ventilation blocks are all decorative pressed vents. The garage has an extra store room attached to it and the cottage, which currently consists of three rooms, was build onto an existing much older single roomed structure, noticeable from the broader walls and wooden windows. One of the new rooms in the cottage was utilised as a bathroom. Both the cottage and garage have also been stripped. Other associated outbuildings include a brick shed a short distance to the west of the garage as well as a milk shed some 50 m to the south. It was constructed of a double row of stones held together with clay. The upper portion of the shed’s wall has periodic ventilation and lighting gaps, theses pillars were later cemented on the outside and are what supports the concrete corrugated roof. The concrete feed troughs, both inside the milk shed and outside remain and inside remnants of the steel poles utilised to divide the milk stalls are still evident. The entire site is in an extremely poor condition and it is evident that all the buildings have been stripped of anything removable or remotely valuable. According to neighbouring farmer Mr. Frans Ferreira the house was at one stage resided in by Skippie Botha. As indicated elsewhere Mr. Botha was a town councillor for Vereeniging for 17 years during the 1950s to 1970s. The cartographic data have shown that the farmhouse was constructed before 1943 while the garage and cottage were constructed between 1943 and 1954. It is therefore evident that at least one (and likely all) building(s) from the site could be 60 years and older.