LOCATION: Drakenstein area – Zevenrivieren, Goede Hoop & Lekkerwijn
LEADER: Andre van Graan
ZEVENRIVIEREN, where we will be welcomed by James Newton.
This farm was granted to Jacob Pleunis and Pieter Malmer in 1708. (Malmer had been settled there for over twenty years); its size was about 120 morgen.
After various changes of ownership it was acquired in 1779 by Johannes Jacobus Hamman, who owned it until 1803 and built the house in 1790. A later owner, David Pieter de Villiers, was responsible for the wine cellar, dated 1810.
The homestead on Zevenrivieren is H-shaped and retains a most beautiful Baroque gable dated 1790, with concave and convex outline mouldings that have become a Combination of wavy curves as at Hazendal, Lower Vredenburg and Ida’s Valley — all more or less of the same date — but with its face left comparatively unadorned. Apart from its gable, the house has been much altered.
It has an iron roof and windows dating from the mid-19th century, while the side-courts have been filled in. ‘The front door is original. The end-gables are holbol; there is no back gable.
The cellar, in line with the house on its right (there are slave-quarters on the other side), has modern windows and an iron roof, but retains a fine gable dated 1810 with a pediment, four pilasters and winged scrolls. In contrast to later gables it has strong horizontal emphasis, as a result of its widely swung wings, its thatch-line string-course and its heavy horizontal mouldings underneath the pediment. The farm complex is how enclosed by an eight-foot wall and security gates, and virtually invisible. [De Bosdari p80.|
GOEDE HOOP, next to Pniel, that Stuart Hermansen discussed in detail at his November Talk.
LEKKERWIJN
Finally, we will go on to Lekkerwijn where Simon Pickstone-Taylor will arrange to have his late father’s amazing door collection moved out of the barn for us to view.
We will also have our end of year picnic here in the grounds of Lekkerwijn