Farming lessons at Rickety Bridge

I'm dipping into the my old files of Rickety Bridge history and they include one or two interviews. One I particularly enjoyed was the McNaughts who were then at Stoney Brook farm and doing rather well after their Rickety Bridge experience. When they bought Rickety Bridge, they were living and working in Grahamstown; Nigel as a doctor and Joy teaching at St Andrew's school.

They were both from Cape Town and on a visit to the Cape, Nigel found that Sanddrift/Rickety Bridge was for sale at an attractive price.

When Joy asked if they could afford it, Nigel told her that if they sold everything they had, borrowed from all their friends and took a mortgage they could just manage.

At first, Nigel’s father and mother moved on to the farm, Nigel’s father harvesting the fruit and sending it off to market. Unbeknown to them, pear sizes were critical and the price of grade 3, the smallest, didn’t cover the cost of sorting and instead of the expected cheque the McNaughts got a bill.
Undeterred, they stuck to the plan and learned more lessons about farming.

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Rickety Bridge winery

Checking my files I found that I had not finished with the original Paulina as her ghost was seen walking through the house. The Heesoms, Mother and Father had gone out to a function and a young woman called Mina was babysitting when, in the early hours of the morning a young woman of about twenty five, with long fairish hair and wearing a long white period dress, walked through the room. Mina mentioned the woman was attractive and seemed happy to be in the house. Mina mentioned she, herself, felt comfortable, not threatened, as if it had been no more than another member of the household who had walked through the room. As Paulina died at twenty six it is assumed she visits the house from time to time. One hopes she is pleased with the alterations and refurbishing of the house since her time. 

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When Heesom moved to Zorgvleit in 1988, he sold the farm Sanddrift to the Mc Naughts, who renamed the farm Rickety Bridge. The McNaughts managed, under severe financial constraint, to replant and revive the making of wine on the farm but, by 1995, were obliged to sell.

Robin Singer took over from McNaught and his partner, revamped the manor house and continued to improve the property as a wine farm, regretfully having to replace the original ‘rickety bridge’ as it had become so rickety patrons were reluctant to cross. Apparently the relationship with Deborah cooled, and although they remained close friends, Singer moved out of Rickety Bridge in 1997 leaving the robins on the gate and the wine label as reminders of his occupation.

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Heesom at Rickety Bridge winery.

During Jeremy Heesom's time, some of the farm outbuildings were converted into packing sheds for the varieties of fruit being produced. This included five varieties of plum, four varieties of peaches and three of pears. All this meant that, during the harvest, the packers were busy in the sheds sixteen hours a day packing the fruit which was all sold on the overseas market.

On the slopes of the Dassenberg, behind the buildings, Jeremy planted fir trees, mentioning that the carpet of pine needles prevented erosion, which, although he had never been back to the farm, Jeremy assured me had become a problem again when the trees were cut down by a later owner, Robin Singer. 

Jeremy’s parents lived on and worked Zorgvleit and the family shared a lorry between the the two farms. This meant work could not be done simultaneously at both farms, with whatever damage to the quality of the harvested grapes is not known, but Jeremy was rather proud of the economy of the idea.

On his mother’s death, Jeremy inherited Zorgvleit and moved there, selling Sanddrift to the McNaughts.

The picture shows the restaurant created during Spence's time.

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What became Rickety Bridge was sold and resold until in 1967, it was bought by the Heesom family. I interviewed the son, Jeremy who told me that for some years the farm had been neglected and the house and its outbuildings were dilapidated.

Having graduated from an English university, Jeremy applied all he had learned to making Sanddrift/Rickety Bridge a productive farm. He grew fruit, pears, apples, plums, peaches, he planted fir trees, he planted a selection of rare varieties of grapes, and he kept pigs and remembers the time with pleasure.

The grapes, which he bought from Stellenbosch Farmers Winery co-operative, included some 4000 Cabernet seedlings but he also introduced Pinotage, Stein, Hermitage and Clairette Blanche, this last being used as a bulking agent in champagne. He later added some Gewurztraminer.

Knowing nothing of wine making, Jeremy sent his grapes to Stellenbosch Farmer’s Winery, from whom he received a good price.

As mentioned, the buildings were in disrepair and the Heesoms spent large sums of money on renovation, re-thatching the manor house and some of the outbuildings.

To accommodate the pigs, the outbuildings had to be modified, several walls being knocked down to meet the needs of the expanded farm. The pigs provided manure for the farm and ate what discards of fruit and other edible rubbish became available. 

The picture shows the lounge of the house as it was after it's final renovation by Duncan Spence in around 2003.

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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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