Bezuidenhout farmhouse (1863)
Another of the early white settlers on the Witwatersrand, the Bezuidenhouts, built their farmhouse on the farm Doornfontein in 1863. The 130-year-old house still stands, now in Bezuidenhout Park or Homestead Park, a large green space in the suburb of Dewetshof, east of the city centre.
The farmhouse started as a simple rectangular building with front stoep. Extensions were made in the 1890s to the south side, giving the house an attractive bay window, and a further wing was added to the north side in 1910.
It is still in good condition and is now the home of the community service club, the Lions, although it belongs to Johannesburg City Parks. It consists of thick, white-washed walls, its original thatch roof having been replaced a long time ago by iron. Frederick Bezuidenhout had settled in the area in the 1850s, and in 1861 part of the farm Doornfontein was ceded to him after he married Judith Viljoen (who gave her name to the suburb Judith's Paarl), whose father owned the farm. The farm was extensive, a beautiful green valley with a vlei or marsh at the bottom of the farm, stretching from Judith's Paarl, up to Cyrildene, over to Gillooly's Farm, and the Kensington ridge in the south.
Doornfontein was one of 20 farms which made up the future city of Johannesburg. Frederick owned the northern part of the farm, where the farmhouse stands, and because it was cultivated land, it was not proclaimed public diggings when gold was discovered in Johannesburg in 1886.
The Bezuidenhouts were to own most of the land in the area for over 30 years, gradually selling off pieces of it. A popular social spot was the band stand, built around 1913 in what is today Hofland Park. One of Frederick's grandsons, Barend, who did most of the subdividing and selling, lived in Kensington in a house called Cosmos, now an old-age home. Willem, one of Frederick's sons, lived in the farmhouse until around 1950. In March 1949 he sold 133 hectares to the city council, stipulating that it was to be a park named Bezuidenhout Park, and that the farmhouse was to be maintained by the council. The park has been developed, and now has a miniature railway, a pool, a caravan park, and multiple sports facilities.
In the 1890s the present-day suburb of Doornfontein, on the western end of Doornfontein, which was considered to be "in the country" then, became the area in which the wealthy Randlords had their offices and built their homes. Barney Barnato had a house in End Street and George Albu had a mansion in Pearse Street. Because a lot of these first residents were Jewish, a synagogue was built, still in Siemert Road.
But ten years later the Randlords found a new luxury suburb: Parktown. Doornfontein went into decline, and some would argue it's remained that way to this day.
In the 1980s the Bezuidenhout farmhouse had a bit of a renaissance when Alan Buff, General Manager of Technical Support and Training at City Parks, lived in it for eight years. He pampered the garden, producing a spectacular wonderland where people came to have their photographs taken, and the mayor held garden parties, and historical societies brought tour groups.
A formal Bezuidenhout reunion was held there in 1982, to which some 50 Bezuidenhout family oldies turned up. One of them, says Buff, was an old woman in her 90s, now dead, the granddaughter of Frederick Bezuidenhout. She was pushed around the house in her wheelchair, pointing out where her grandparents used to sip champagne by candlelight in the study (now a bedroom), gossiping about other family members.
She told other stories. One of the old men in the family shot a lion down in a vlei - now a sportsfield - from the stoep of the farmhouse.
In the same area there used to be a black concentration camp during the Anglo Boer War. The British used the farmhouse as a base during that war, and the grounds housed some 4 000 horses, maintained by a 7 000-strong non-combatant Indian contingent.
She remembered a mural of Cape Town harbour, now long erased by a coat of paint. She recalled the "Dassie Trail". Farmers used to alternate being hosts for Sunday lunch, walking across the veld to one another, and on the Observatory ridge there were lots of dassies, which were shot and taken along to be included in the lunch menu.
The farm had a "walnut walk", an avenue of walnut trees leading to the present-day bowling green. Walnuts only last about 50 years, so the walk and trees are long gone. But what still remains is a curved row of around six glorious large oak trees in front of the house, probably offspring of the original oak trees on the farm which were planted at the same time as the house was built.
Says Buff: "One day one of these trees was hit by lightning, and I was able to trace the history of the area by its rings."
Photos
1. Looking east of what was originally the farm Doornfontein, now suburbia.
2. The Bezuidenhout family farmhouse as it is today.
For more information on historic Johannesburg, visit Discover Joburg.
Related articles
Article and photograph/s courtesy of City of Johannesburg website (www.joburg.org.za).
Readers' Comments
Have a comment or question about this article? Tell us about it..
Get up-to-date property news
Would you like to receive free weekly news and information about property in South Africa? Click here to sign up for Property24's Week in Review.
Property News
Click here for more property news articles or sign up now for our free news SMSs twice a day.
Print
