Groote Schuur - Phillida Brooke Simons & Alain Proust
From Granary to Stately Home
No other house can claim to be as `South African' as Groote Schuur. Not only does it bear the stamp of this country's history, but since 1657 it has played - and still plays - a role in that history. Here Cecil John Rhodes, devastated by his friend Jameson's ill-starred raid into the Transvaal, paced up and down his bedroom floor; here resided prominent members of nineteenth-century Cape social and political circles; here were stored the harvests of the Dutch East India Company's victualling station.
In the present century, Groote Schuur has witnessed `Ouma' Smuts packing wartime parcels for 'the boys up North'; a banquet held in honour of British prime minister, Harold Macmillan, just before his famous `wind of change' speech. And, perhaps most telling of all, the house provided a fitting venue for the first official meeting between recently released Nelson Mandela and the state president at the time, F. W. de Klerk - the meeting that resulted in the Groote Schuur Minute.
The house that Herbert Baker built, on Dutch foundations, is filled with treasures of Eastern, European and African provenance, reflecting South Africa's heterogeneous society. Many were collected by and for Cecil Rhodes, the most famous of Groote Schuur's occupants. Here can be found locally crafted armoires, kists and chairs, silver snuffboxes and brass candle-sticks; porcelain from China and Japan; longcase clocks and paintings, silver salt cellars and tobacco boxes, delftware and tiles from the Netherlands; chairs and bureaux from England, as well as silver sugar casters, tankards and pocket watches; glassware from Ger-many; and tapestries from Flanders. Here, too, are artefacts and relics from the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, including the enigmatic Zimbabwe bird which so fascinated Rhodes.
In Groote Schuur: Great Granary to Stately Home, Alain Proust's sensitive camerawork guides us around the impressive rooms, alighting here and there on fascinating detail. The lively and well-researched text by Phillida Brooke Simons outlines the house's historical and architectural development, discusses Rhodes's all-important influence on it, and describes its occupation by subsequent political leaders. Combined, the photographs and text present a rare opportunity to marvel at and enjoy the splendour of this unique piece of South Africa's heritage.
Condition: Very good
Format: Hardcover with DJ
Published: 1996 (Fernwood Press)
Pages: 144
ISBN: 9781874950233
