The Dirkse van Schalkwyk’s bought the farm in 1868, the year it was confirmed that diamonds occurred in South Africa with the finding of the Star of South Africa. Mr le Roux of the Paarl museum commented that the Dirkse van Schalkwyks were something of an aristocratic van Schalkwyk, the addition of the Dirkse being equivalent to an English double barrel.

Nothing was found about what kind of man the first van Schalkwyk was, or how he struggled to replant after Phyloxera was discovered but, if not wealthy, he did become a man of substance, justifying a note in the local paper when he died explaining that he died in Worcester where he had gone to visit. During the visit he took ill and died on the Monday 27^th September 1913.

His son Theunis Gabriel Dirkse van Schalkwyk took over ownership in 1914 and left a substantial estate, recorded in detail in the Archives the most notable items being that on maps of the period  his farm/s  are mentioned as ‘Sanddrift now Paulinas Dal.’ That he left furniture valued at £50 and a motor car valued at £85 left specially to his daughter-in-law Anna Sussana Gertreuda van Schalkwyk. Fixed deposits totalling £1300 As well as a list of shares

Paarl African Trust                                                             £ 30

50 Wine Volkspers Bpk                                                                     £   8 – 19 – 2

20 Shares Franschhoek Coop Vrugteuitvoerders Maatsckappy        £    2 – 18 – 0 Fruit transporters

11 Shares SA Dried Fruit Co.                                                            £    5 – 10 – 0

607 Shares KWV                                                                               £106 – 14 – 6

         Interest                                                                                      £  15 –   3 – 6

(This legacy indicating that the farm had been a success from a financial point of view.)

The picture is of the tea room at Franscchhoek

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The tragic tale of Paulina's Dal/Rickety Bridge continued into 1867 when the then owner, Du Toit, lost the farm. In his insolvency papers he complained he had to pay interest on the whole of the purchase price annually as well as support a large family despite the value of his wine crops falling due to the disease in the vines. Du Toit owed £1125, the amount he had paid for the property fourteen years earlier but,which was now worth only £580.

He had two main debts, one for £700, the outstanding balance of the loan from Paulina's father, Paul, which he used to buy the farms. Had the loan still been in Paul's name, things might have been different, but,for some reason, the loan had been transferred to Paulina's grandson, who was probably in similar financial difficulties and dependent on the interest.

There may be more to it, of course. The second claim on poor du Toit was for the £425 outstanding on the bond he had given to Paulina's husband, Pepler, which had been transferred to an outsider.  As Pepler's will showed his estate consisted of  no more than ‘some furniture valued at £25’ and his death certificate noted that he had been ‘lately a shopkeeper’, it may be that Pepler's grandson felt du Toit's inability to pay his debts had forced grandfather Pepler into virtual poverty and was unsympathetic to du Toit's problems. I'm making this into a story and must stick to facts but the temptation to create motives and turn this into a family saga is great because ~~~ in 1868, Paulinas Dal was auctioned and bought by Willem Jacobus Dirkse van Schalkwyk, whose wife, Francina Hester de Villiers, was another descendent of the original de Villiers brothers, the great-grand-daughter of Paulina's uncle Jacob.

The image is of the tea garden at Franschhoek memorial.

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In the 1850's there was a resurgence in the local wine business caused by the devastation of the European vineyards by powdery mildew, which pushed Cape exports to 1 112 449 gallons, but it was short lived.

Despite the debt burden he faced, du Toit struggled on.

Powdery mildew was in the Cape by 1859 and unfortunately, although some of the upland farms escaped, the Franschhoek valley suffered.

Then, in 1860, Britain signed a trade agreement with France that reduced the tariff on imports from there and virtually killed the export trade of the Cape wine farms.

By 1861, the powdery mildew was at its worst in the winelands. While the application of sulphur proved an effective antidote, lurking in the background was Phylloxera. Discovered in America in 1854, the pest had crossed the Atlantic and had been recognised in hothouses in Hammersmith in 1960. By 1863 it was rife in France.

In 1866 a strange infection was noticed at the Cape and the Cape of Good Hope Agricultural Society suggested wine farmers should try growing linseed, cochineal and some new varieties of tobacco.

The 1867 recognition that the ‘blink klippies’ around Kimberley were diamonds saved South Africa’s economy and encouraged many farmers to sell up and try their luck at Kimberley, for du Toit, even that was too late.

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Rickety Bridge - Going back to 1830. In that year the farm was owned by Catharina, the widow Pepler, and when her son married Catharina's second cousin, the twenty year old Paulina de Villiers, Catharina installed them in the newly built manor house with its built in wall cabinet that still graces the ‘voorkamer’ in thee picture.

The marriage was a family affair and Paulina and the Peplers could both trace ancestry back to Jacques de Villiers, one of the three original immigrant Huguenot brothers. Palina had two children and enjoyed the manor house for only six years before dying at her father's farm.

What was Paulina like? 

No pictures have come to light. Since she died in 1836 at the age of twenty six, one assumes she was not particularly robust and a picture of a frail beauty comes to mind. Paulina did have two children however, so frailty seems inappropriate.

Her death certificate records only that she died at Groot Drakenstein but the law required it to be signed by ‘a close relative, who had been present at, or near the persons death or, in the absence of such, by the person who shall have chief charge of the house in, or of the place on which, the death took place’.

It is Paulina’s father, Paul, who signed the certificate bu t it makes no mention of whether she was thrown from a horse, or if she had gone to her mother to be nursed.

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Rickety Bridge story. In 1847 Pepler sold the farm, really a collection of smaller farms, to a chap called du Toit who paid a deposit but agreed a mortgage of £500 for the balance with Pepler. Du Toit also arranged a loan of £1000 from Paul de Villiers of Boschendal, Paulina's father and his own father-in-law, giving himself a debt of £1500 on a property he had bought for £1125, and set about farming. In 1860 the bottom fell out of the wine business and du Toit was left with a debt of £1500 on a property valued at £580 - negative equity!! Du Toit declared bankruptcy and the piece of the farms that included what is now Rickety Bridge was bought at auction by Willem Jacobus Dirkse van Schalkwyk, the husband of Francina Hester de Villiers. The farm was owned by the van Schalkwyks from then until 1953.

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