THE VALLEY: AN HISTORICAL AND PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE

1845 - 2002

hat follows is my spontaneous attempt to look at Another bit of track (some of it covered with rubble) can Wsome of the history of this beautiful Valley over my be seen running down the Clement Stott Rd side of Heidi’s lifetime and in the 100-or-so years preceding my birth on Farm Stall and over the spur below the stall. More of it can the Kearsney hilltop. In doing so, I am indebted to the be seen on the slopes of Alverstone above the Chantecler / Local History Research Unit Controversy Drive area. After mounting Alverstone it publications of 1981-82 (under the mentorship of Robin went down and parts are visible on the 1000 Hills side of Lamplough) and the late Bob O’Keefe’s Pioneers’ the present old main road (), on OTH Beier’s Progress, published in 1988 by Hilltop Publications. property. Quotations are taken, with thanks, from these sources. My personal views I take full responsibility for. n 1879, the railway went through and the station was I built. The old station house and the workers’ cottages YESTERDAY (near Natal Fencing) still stand today. An old engraved stone survey beacon can be found on a top corner of the round the early 1840’s, a Voortrekker, J.J. (Hans) property occupied now by Sue Reece (G210). In 1884, A Potgieter, “found” property to his liking on the the Botha’s Hill Hotel was built up on the hill behind the difficult route between (Port Natal) and station (on the right at the entrance to Dunrobin Lane (the Capital) and settled in a lush valley where the townhouse complex now stands). The hotel surrounded by sheer sandstone cliffs and dense grasslands. closed about 20 years ago and was a favoured watering Nearby, the Farm Buffelsfontein of about 6000 acres (the hole for generations of Botha’s Hill & Assagay folk. present West Riding / Kassier Rd area) had a roadside inn (“Elliott’s Inn”) on it, near Padley’s Crossing over the n 1855, E.B. Clough established Clough’s Half-Way railway. Later it became, variously, the Albany Hotel, I House, described by one patron as “one of the best along Botha’s Halfway House, the Black Horse, and Padley’s the road”. Situated where canelands now lie in the shallow Hotel until it closed around 1880. An old oak tree, thought valley between Collins Bus Station and the Alverstone to have marked the site of the hotel, fell over in 1983, and railway stop, it was renamed “Clough’s Royal Hotel” after part of it stands today mounted outside the Hillcrest Prince Alfred, Queen Victoria’s second son, visited it. The library. innkeeper was Thomas Arnold and the place became a popular stage-coach stop-off on the trip to and from ans Potgieter’s Farm was registered as Assagay Kraal Pietermaritzburg. Part of the original hotel still stands Hin 1848 and occupied what is now our Assagay today, by report. By 1884, after the railway went through, Valley. In 1850, George Mason (a Byrne settler) and his it had probably closed and refreshments were available to brother were walking from Durban to Pietermaritzburg and train commuters at the Botha’s Hill Hotel and at a came across the farm, viewed from where Heidi’s Farm refreshment room near or on the station platform. Stall now stands. He described it as follows: “ From this cutting, which is very narrow – indeed just a ledge on the he Botha’s Hill Trading Store was established in about mountainside – you get a ‘bird’s-eye-view’ of Potgieter’s T1920 where the Kwikspar now stands, the Butchery up farm, down in a well-watered valley to the left, with a snug the road also, and Bob Emmett’s “native store” a while Dutch homestead, a large orchard, some fields of ripening later near the present entrance to the Botha’s Hill corn, and droves of cattle, forming a pretty picture when Hardware yard. Chantecler Hotel was built in the early contrasted with the barren steeps, and wild craggy peaks, 1940s in the belief, possibly optimistically, that it could by which it is walled in all round.” take some of the overnight traffic on the upcountry route. It had also been rumoured that a new National Road might A year later Thomas Phipson, walking from pass through the valley. The long and winding dirt road Pietermaritzburg to Durban, also found the view of down to the hotel had three farms / smallholdings on it: Potgieter’s farm attractive: “Near this spot, down in a Hermanson (pigs and poultry) later owned by Roy Stuart warm and sheltered valley among the mountains, lie the (on present-day G206, the Farm Glenlivet); on the river, farm and house of Hans Potgieter, a Dutch African Boer. Jackson (cattle), and Alf Burwood (pigs) on the original Some portions of ploughed lands, and herds of cattle farm Three Streams. The latter two had access up the grazing, give life to a Natal landscape, usually deficient in present Jacwood Path. The causeway over the these adjuncts”. Umhlatuzana River on Clement Stott Rd was built by Edgar Gevers, father of Rita Heilgendorff. arts of the old wagon track are still visible today. P From the Sugar Loaf Centre at the entrance to Assagay n 1930, Clement Stott (father of Dr Halley Stott who Rd, the track ran up into a cutting that is now largely I founded the Valley Trust and who was christened, impassable but joins into Nquma Rd. I used it as a incidentally, after the passing of Halley’s Comet in 1910) youngster as a short cut on my bicycle to Hillcrest. established the village: Botha’s Hill Estates. He owned large tracts of land on the hilltop and donated the land G106 & 107), Duckponds Farm (now G104 & 105), the Kearsney occupies at present. He lived where the Williams’ farm way to the left, and Chantecler Hotel. Highfield Rest Home / Augustinian Convent now stands Further to the right, Gevers’ Farm (now Heidi’s), and in opposite the Fainting Goat. He had plans for a Hotel in the distance on Clement Stott Rd, Jackson / Burwood Ridge Road (above Heidi’s where the old reservoir still (Three Streams) and Hermanson (Glenlivet). Cattle stands) and for a golf course on what had been Potgieter’s roamed the pastures. Rob Roy stood out on the summit. farm in Assagay. In the early 1930s, a Country Club was planned where Rob Roy now stands, and the Hotel opened ne of my favourite pastimes in the late 40s / early 50s in 1935. On the afternoon of 2 December 1962, on my O was hanging around the Lower Madwalas with my way home on my motor-bike after my last day at mates, bum-sliding down the slippery rocks and swimming University in Pietermaritzburg, I saw flames in the sky and in the pool below the rocks (that sharp protruding rock is went up to witness Rob Roy burning to the ground. The still there, as are the enormous Natal Figs). I would walk new Hotel was subsequently built by Rolf Paeper, a well- down there with the Kearsney janitor (Raymond Colley) to known present resident of Botha’s Hill. prime and start the diesel pump to replenish the Kearsney water tanks. Birdlife, buck, bushpig, mongoose, were n the late 1930s, a small zoo and tea-garden was created plentiful, even otter, shrimps, and fish in the river! I by Mr and Mrs Burnand on the property just to the left Kearsney boys, for donkey’s years, took “valley leave” on of the present Kearsney gates. They had a snake pit, lions, a Sunday after chapel, a picnic lunch provided by the buck and monkeys. At some stage Mr & Mrs Fred Dawes school, and disappeared into the valley and all over ran the tea-garden and later sent their son, Vernon, to Alverstone. Some, reputedly, also visited the “Valley Kearsney. The zoo was closed, following public Queen”, a hospitable young lady living on Cadmoor Farm! complaints, in the early 40s. TODAY AND TOMORROW eidi’s Farm Stall was run by Edgar Gevers from the Horiginal Hans Potgieter farm and was in existence in oday there must be around 75 registered property the late 1940’s as a small wood-and-iron roadside stall Tsubdivisions in the Assagay Valley from those original with a wooden hatch that was pulled up at the end of the few farms. New pressures are being brought to day’s trading. I and my fellows took the train every day landowners now and the town planning wedge is rapidly from the Kloof Primary School (the nearest government growing wider. Those who have valued their open space, school) to Botha’s Hill station and walked home to their small-scale economic (or uneconomic) farming Kearsney daily past Heidi’s. One of these fellows was ventures, their remaining wildlife, their safety and security, Verne Lello who carried his satchel down the dusty Lello may soon have to downscale these ambitions. Local Road to their farm at the bottom of the valley, present-day government is unsympathetic to these aesthetic remnants Eden Rock Farm, owned by the Cresswells since 1964. of our past. With human density escalation come smaller The Lellos farmed pigs in those days. properties and closer neighbours, less economic farming, more vehicle and pedestrian traffic, less wildlife (through lthough the Farm Assagay Kraal had been registered destroyed habitat, more dogs, and more hunting), less A in the last century, I don’t think that there was much security, more river pollution, higher service-provision significant separation of Assagay from Botha’s Hill. costs, exhorbitant taxes, less farm-labour employment. Botha’s Hill’s water supply came from the Umhlatuzana River prior to 1960 and the small dam in the Lower f we are to survive this evolution and manage change, Madwalas (below Eden Rock Farm) and the two pump I we have to anticipate future development to minimise stations on the concrete slab there supplied water to both the emotional and rational impact of such change. Perhaps Kearsney and Botha’s Hill. The Botha’s Hill water was fed the proposed Game Sanctuary is one such way to improve from the concrete reservoir in Ridge Rd, still there now. security and provide at least some habitat conservation Kearsney had two huge metal tanks on a 30-metre- high within the boundary fence. Those outside the fence will tower near the swimming pool that fed gravitational water now need to put more focussed effort into environmental to the school. The Botha’s Hill Water Company had been protection and improvement for the many remaining formed, I think, in the 1930s and what is known now as the animals excluded from the private reserve area. The whole Lower Madwalas was registered as public land for the use valley of 282 Ha, including the Upper and Lower of the Water Company and in perpetuity for the residents Madwalas, is still registered as the Assagay Conservancy of Botha’s Hill. Regional Water came in the early 60s. and increasing human density places huge responsibility on all residents to conserve wildlife habitat and maintain s a youngster in my teens (early 1950s), I spent a lot the integrity or wholeness of Hans Potgieter’s impressive A of time riding my bike in the valley and viewing it valley. I believe that we will need to prepare ourselves for from the cliffs on the Kearsney edge. The valley was subdivisions down to 1 Ha and to manage that change almost totally grassland except for the riverine forest along without destroying the beauty and tranquillity of the the Umhlatuzana. The only homesteads seen from the Valley. We must work together on this or we lose the cliffs were Lello’s pigfarm, Springvalley pigfarm (at the historical coherence and unity of spirit of our people. end of Cadmoor Rd), Cadmoor Farm (the main dwelling on G304), what was or became Dr Gowans’ place (now Peter Reece February 2002