Neil Fraser
July 7, 2003
Monday 30 June was the launch of the public space upgrade of the Fashion District. Apart from a Fashion display in 109 Pritchard Street, the Inner City Councillor Sol Cowan laid the first piece of mosaic in the stitching pattern being used in the pavements to demarcate the precinct (who says Councillors don't work!) - I attended a small workshop on Tuesday when the design proposals were presented to stakeholders in the area - more of that in a future edition.
Wednesday was the monthly Johannesburg Inner City Business Coalition (JICBC) Exco meeting.
Why was tea kept under lock and key in Victorian households and why did Mrs. Beaton stress that one only dealt with highly reputable tea and coffee purveyors?
Why were Victorian tea-cups so wide and some men's tea cups fitted with a ledge across the rim?
Why was the best China kept in the butler's pantry where a footman with a loaded gun would sleep at nights?
What was the origin of anti-Macassars?
And why on earth would a chamber-pot be kept hidden in the sideboard in Victorian dining rooms?
One never ceases to find something new in Joeys! Only in this case, whilst new for me, it was in fact long established. I spent a fascinating hour yesterday with Katharine Love in her home 'Lindfield' in Richmond Avenue, Auckland Park. Katharine was born a block to the west of the house but the family property was expropriated when RAU extended their campus and the Love's then acquired the current property. Her mother was a passionate collector of antiques and where better to show them off but in a 22 roomed Sir Herbert Baker designed house! Her eclectic taste in antiques led to a large collection of pieces from various eras but on her death her daughter concentrated the collection largely on those pieces from the late Victorian era.
Katharine Love had spent a great deal of time with her mother whilst Mrs Love was acquiring her collection and, as a result, Katharine developed a passion for this period. It is her quite amazing knowledge of the era and its customs and habits, quirks and fancies that proves to be as fascinating as the house and furniture which exists right here in Auckland Park.
It will be viewed today by many as something of an anachronism and by others as merely another part of our unfortunate colonial past. But Johannesburg was established during the Victorian era and so, however incongruous it might seem to us modern Africans, it was very much part of the city's history. Not only was the furniture of the era imported to grace local homes (how it got here in good condition alone must have been quite an achievement!) but so were the customs and fashions of the time.
The early Victorian period was evidently one of dark and gloomy rooms sparsely furnished - the Great Exhibition in London in 1851 held in the Crystal Palace changed all that. Amazingly a quarter of the British population visited the Great Exhibition where they were exposed to furniture and accoutrements from all over Europe and the Far East. The result was that the previously sparsely furnished rooms soon became cluttered with catholic collections. Rooms became a jumble of pieces of furniture of every size, shape and usage covered with every conceivable and often very beautiful items of glass- and china- and silverware. 'Lindfield' is the backdrop for just such an amazing collection.
The Victorian dining room is set for a three course meal (during an earlier period tables were set for the nine or ten courses which would be served but later this was thought to be somewhat ostentatious and affected and so settings for only three courses were provided - at a time!) - the music room is Edwardian, bright and sunny, only hired musicians played here - the ornately decorated drawing room was where the lady of he house would paint, write and embroider as well as entertain visitor who stayed for a strictly set period - the art nouveau library has an amazing collection of books and a huge record collection of 78 rpm records, every one hand catalogued in a huge tome - it was here where the men would gather to smoke wearing special smoking jackets, slippers and caps which were removed when they left the room so as not to carry the smell of smoke to other parts of the house!- the pantries and kitchen, the bedrooms and bathrooms are all stocked with original items even to the medicine chest carefully built beyond the reach of children. Only the men bathed in the bathrooms, the womenfolk were waited on by their servants and had heated water, tubs and accessories bought to them in their bedrooms.
And all this was part of early Johannesburg! As incongruous as it might now seem and must have been then, this was how a small, elite group lived. Katharine tells me that Auckland Park at the turn of the century was considered to be "in the country" relative to the city. It was here that many of the gentry would spend their weekends - apart from country houses thee was an hotel, a boating lake (where the Country Club is today) and a horse racing track (where RAU is). Auckland Park was laid out in 1888 and developed by a New Zealander, John Landau, who saw in the area great similarities to his home town Auckland, hence the name. The names of the streets were all related to places along the Thames - Richmond, Twickenham, Ditton, Wargrave, Kingston, Finsbury, Surbiton, Hampton, Fulham, Henley, etc etc.
A number of early Johannesburg "names" built houses here, Julius Jeppe built four, one for himself, one each for his daughter and son and one for his butler. When the Prince of Wales, later he Duke of Windsor who rejected the throne for love of a 'commoner', visited South Africa in 1925 it was originally planned that he would be accommodated at the Rand Club. However, as ladies were not allowed in the Club, and knowing his weakness for the female sex, Abe Bailey arranged for him to be accommodated in 1 and 2 Greenlands Road in Auckland Park. He stayed in No.2 and his staff in No. 1. After he left, No.2 was purchased by Patrick Flanagan, the president of the JSE and his widow continued to live in the house till her death in the '80s when she was well into her nineties.
'Lindfield' was designed by Sir Herbert Baker. Herbert Baker qualified as an architect in England in 1891 and almost immediately set sail for South Africa. In 1892 he met and subsequently became a protégé of Cecil John Rhodes in Cape Town. After undertaking a wide range of design and restoration work in the Cape he was sent by Rhodes to Greece, Italy and Egypt to further his studies. On his return he settled in the Transvaal from where he was responsible for a prodigious and enormous range of work all over the country. His masterpiece was the Union Buildings in Pretoria but he was responsible for many houses in Johannesburg as well as the South African Institute for Medical Research built in 1912, numerous Anglican churches including those in Krugersdorp, Randfontein, Parktown, Orchards, Germiston and Boksburg. Roedean School, St John's College, the School of Music, the Union Club and the Observatory were amongst some of his other notable designs. He left South Africa in 1912 and after completing the Legislative Buildings in New Delhi - for which he was knighted - he returned to England where he continued to practice.
The date when Lindfield was designed and built is not clear as all Sir Herbert Baker's drawings were evidently stolen from the Council and sold in the UK. However what is known is that the house was altered first in 1924 by A.J.Marshall, a former clerk of Sir Herbert Baker and then in 1933 by Nellie Edwards the first lady architect in Johannesburg. Both also designed and built their own homes in Auckland Park.
Lindfield is a museum but it is also Katharine Love's home which makes it a truly living museum. Only about half of the rooms of the house have been restored and are on show, there is an urgent need for the refurbishment of the others. Part of the garden is currently being restored, a Victorian rose garden is under construction. But Lindfield epitomises the lack of interest (or is it a lack of ability to comprehend) of a city and a country still battling to come to grips with its past, its heritage and its culture. This private house-museum encapsulates a period of the city's history, however distasteful to some or incongruous to others that the period might have been, yet it receives no help or support of any shape or form from any organ of government. One of these days it and all of its fascinating linkages with and stories of the past will disappear and, sadly, with it part of the city's history. And that would be a great loss.
And the answers to the questions? Well, you can find out through a visit - tours can be made daily by appointment, they last about one-and-a-quarter hours followed by refreshments and cost R35 per person. Phone Katharine Love at 726.2932.
