LOCATION: Hermanus
LEADER: Noon Lloyd, Estelle Spaarwater
This trip follows on from Graham Jacobs’s talk. We will be travelling by bus to Hermanus where chairperson of the Overstrand Heritage and Aesthetics Committee, Estelle Spaarwater, and architect and Vernacs member, Noon Lloyd, will take us on a walking tour around an older part of the town.
There will be a brief stop at the Kramers’ house in Onrus where we will have a cup of tea and an introductory talk by Estelle.
Thereafter we will travel up the Rotary Way which overlooks the town for an overview of Hermanus.
Then we will travel down into the town to explore the area around the Old Harbour and to visit the De Wet Photographic Museum with its wonderful collection of early photographs of Hermanus.
Estelle and Noon will lead us to the ‘binnedorp’ so that we can look at a block of original buildings, now all adapted for modern use, after which we will walk back to Marine Drive to discuss some of the buildings in this area.
Lunch will be a picnic on the lawns at the Old Harbour. Hopefully the whales will oblige with a visit. If it rains, arrangements have been made for us to move indoors.
After lunch the bus will take us out towards Voelklip where we will look at De Mond (the original house on this site was built by Cloete who also owned Groote Constantia), The Homestead (second holiday home after De Mond built by the McFarlanes and subsequently donated to be used as a nurse’s holiday home), and finally Willhelmstad, among the first houses at Voelklip, now the centre of a debate about its future.
Before we leave Hermanus there will be a comfort stop at Noon’s offices, which are in an original fisherman’s cottage, that she has sensitively adapted to house her architectural practice.
Our sincere thanks to Pat and John Kramer for arranging this fascinating outing to Hermanus.