Strauss & co - 22 October 2012, Cape Town

13 One of the many old Cape farms that were given highly descriptive names is Keerweder, which in old Dutch could mean both “Come Again” or “Turn Around”. The latter would clearly refer to its position right at the head of the Franschhoek Valley – long before the construction of the Franschhoek Pass. The name Franschhoek itself, of course, is equally meaningful: the “French corner”where so many French Huguenots settled in the 1680s, as demonstrated by the many farms with French names: Bourgogne, Champagne, La Dauphine, Cabrière. But as its Dutch name suggests, Keerweder predates the arrival of the Huguenots. It is in fact the oldest farm in Franschhoek (which itself first had a Dutch name, Olifantshoek, a charming reminder of the times when elephants came across the mountains to calf and feed in the fertile valley). Keerweder was settled by Dutch East India Company employee Heinrich Müller from Basle around 1692, though the title deed is only signed 1695. But in 1701 it did become the property of a Huguenot, Estienne Niel. In 1828 it was bought by Jacobus Petrus Kriel, who played a prominent role in the establishment of the Franchhoek Dutch Reformed congregation and three of whose sons became men of the cloth. The best known of these was Abraham Kriel, born in 1850, who in 1902 founded an orphanage catering for Boer War orphans, a much respected institution that still exists and bears his name. Most of the Franschhoek farms concentrated on viticulture. But Keerweder’s vines were hit hard by the 1886 phylloxera plague and the Kriel family were forced to take in paying guests. Positioned at the foot of the Franschhoek Pass it became a convenient stop-over and it reputed to be the country’s oldest guest house. Long known as Swiss Farm Excelsior, it was popular with honeymooners, visitors from the goldfields up north and for recuperation. Its guest book is now kept at the Franschhoek Museum. The farm remained Kriel property for a full 97 years. We can assume that there must have been a dwelling on the farm ever since Müller’s days. It may well have stood on the site and even formed part of the structure of the present homestead. But it was probably Kriel who in 1828, or soon thereafter, gave the house its present plan and appearance, as also suggested by its windows. These are of a transitional type between the Dutch and the British, with upper halves that slide down, as against the Dutch type in which the upper parts are fixed and resting on a transom. The house soon became H-shaped, which can be regarded as the ultimate Cape Dutch plan in the ‘letter-of-the alphabet’ development in which wings of standard 6-metres width are combined to form an approximately square dwelling. But archaeological investigations have established that it probably reached this shape via T- and H-shapes. Like so many other Cape Dutch farmsteads, Keerweder almost certainly had end-gables, and probably also a centre gable in front and perhaps at the back. But towards the end of the 19th century it was much changed, with the thatch being replaced by corrugated iron at a lower pitch, which involved the removal of the gables and the insertion of small loft windows, and the addition of lean-to’s and a veranda. Despite the Victorian alterations, more than enough of the original fabric was left intact to warrant a thorough restoration which was undertaken in 1992. In most respects, the building provided its own clues, the front wing being given mutiple-concave outlines with a small pediment at the top – such as would conform to the date 1828 – the back wings getting half-hipped ends. For the front gable an informed guess produced a design with wings and a crown that corresponds with the same date. Keerweder is now, once again, one of the finest monuments in the entire Franschhoek Valley. Hans Fransen Unpublished sources: C. Snipelisky (Arch.). H.J. Deacon (U.S.), C. Rademeyer, B. Heydenrych (U.S.) 1992-2. J.E. Malherbe (Huguenot Memorial Museum) 2012. Introduction by Dr Hans Fransen