The Barry ‘empire’

Across Voortrek Street from The Cottage is the Auld House (8), built in about 1802. It was bought in 1826 by Joseph Barry, founder of the firm Barry and Nephews. This was the dominant commercial enterprise in the Overberg for half a century, even issuing its own banknotes.

The Auld House was enlarged after a fire in 1834, and retains the appearance it was given then. For many years it belonged to Barry descendants, and contained many relics of their ‘Empire’, including the dining table and benches from the Steamer Kadie — now in the Drostdy.

The main road, which pre-dates the town and is part of the early Cape Wagon Road, still bends to the south past the Drostdy, just as it did in 1776 when the artist Johannes Schumacher set up his easel somewhere near the Comlands River to record the scene. Where the road forks, continue straight, slightly uphill, into Van Oudtshoorn Road.

On your left, set back from the road, is number 23(9), one of the few houses to have retained its original small-paned casements and wooden shutters. It dates from 1820, the same period as number 21 (10), which was remodelled in the Georgian style in about 1855.

Turn right into Swellengrebel Street, passing on your left the double-storeyed Schoone Oordt (11), built in 1853 in the Cape Georgian style. The elaborate cast-ironwork was added in the Victorian period. Across the river on your left is number 18 (12), which houses the offices and library of the Drostdy Museum (visitors permitted). This was originally a single-storeyed thatched house, but was converted in the mid-19th century to the Cape Georgian style.

Swellendam’s museums

A little further, also on your left, is a starkly simple but very attractive row of buildings that can be seen in the Schumacher drawing of 1776. This was the Swellendam jail (13), and also the home of the jailer and other Drostdy officials. It is now part of the Drostdy Museum. (There is a small fee at the entrance, and keep your admission ticket, as it will admit you to the other two museum buildings open to the public — the Drostdy and Mayville. All three open daily except Sundays and religious holidays.)

In a wing of the old jail building are the cells — including a ‘black hole’ with no windows. Behind the jail an ‘ambagswerf’ (trades yard) has been built. Around a grassy square with a charcoal furnace there are small buildings in the local style, each containing the tools and products of a particular trade. The coppersmith, leatherworker, wagon-builder and wheelwright are represented — also nearby are a replica of an undershot water-mill, a horse-operated mill and a threshing floor.

Cross Swellengrebel Street (in which many of the oaks are national monuments) to the Drostdy (14). Before entering, look back, across Swellengrebel Street, at the handsome farmhouse of Zanddrift 1(15), dating from 1768. This farmhouse originally stood near Drew, in the Bonnievale district, and after stand ing empty for a number of years was carefully moved to its present site, where it serves as a restaurant.

The Drostdy, which served as court and residence for the magistrate for 100 years until 1846, was originally a T-shaped building. Later it was enlarged and turned into an H- plan with two short wings. At the same time the main entrance was moved from Drostdy Street to where it is today. The charming little wine cellar, with its plaster oak leaves and vines, is thought to have been added around 1825.

In the foyer of the Drostdy are large reproductions of paintings of Swellendam and Breë River scenes painted by Thomas Bowler in 1860, and a collection of Cape silver in the wall cupboard (muurkas).

On the right, the sitting room has had its lime-sand floor restored to the pattern shown in a sketch of 1798 by Lady Anne Barnard. The Drostdy floors vary considerably in composition, but all are traditional — from the cow-dung finish of the kitchen floor to the peach pips laid in clay in another part of the building.

The kitchen in the Drostdy is particularly well-equipped with the many implements — from oven rakes to sausage-fillers — needed to supply the family with food in the days before electricity.

A Victorian treasure

In an outbuilding of the Drostdy is a small collection of animal-drawn vehicles, including a hearse, the country’s oldest ox-wagon (made in 1795) and a replica of a mail coach.

When you leave the Drostdy, cross Drostdy Street and walk down Swellengrebel Street, turning left into Hermanus Steyn Street. Number 4, Mayville (16), was built as a private home in 1853, and now houses another section of the museum.

Mayville was built on land cut off from the Drostdy and formerly stood on a plot which extended to the Cornlands river. The stumps of the oaks which lined the walk to the river can still be seen in the garden on the opposite side of Hermanus Steyn Street.

Perhaps the most charming feature of Mayville is its garden, laid out in formal Victorian style, complete with gazebo. Only ‘old’ strains of flowers are grown here, and a slow stroll through this quiet garden of yesterday is an experience appropriate to a town which preserves so much of a more gracious era