Maitland Army Camp & Oude Molen Mill
I recently bought the illustrated cover below. Published by 'G. Budrick. corner of Church and St George's Street' they are common enough yet manage to sell for a small premium due to their South African War interest. They were produced largely to sell to British troops stationed in Cape Town, most particularly Maitland Camp, a large training, accilmatisation and transit faciltiy close to the Docks and railway.
1902. G. Budricks printed cover. 'JA 8 02' to GB 'FE 4 02'.
Note the Oude Molen Mill (expanded view) in the illustration.
Clearly this ancient Dutch-era structure was a feature of the Britsh Army camp at Maitland.
I knew the area well, having grown up in 13 Camp Road, Pinelands. During the SAW Pinelands was a forestry plantation. Camp Road ran out of Maitland Camp and down the last of the Table Mountain foothills to the Cape Flats at Epping where the SAW is or was commemorated by a roundabout called 'Gunner's Circle'. Our nearest Southern Line railway station was Oude Molen, now abandoned. Its desolate railway palms in concrete tubs, dusted rusty red and dessicated by the spiteful weather and indifferent railway officialdom are what I remember now. Also that the road immediately behind our house was called Old Mill Road (Afr. Oude Molen Straat).
Anyway.... I bought this cover because it shows a full-house of five Boers printed on the reverse - Presidents Steyn and Kruger, Generals De Wet, Botha and De La Rey. I am not sure if this is unusal or not. The person who sold it to me said it was.
1902. Reverse of G. Budrick's Illustrated Cover. Five Prominent Boers - two Presidents and three Generals.
I would be interested to know more about this illustration. It is possibly uncommon.
I have done a quick search on the internet and not seen another similar cover with an illustrated reverse. I bought this for my Ceres collection, not for any SAW interest. However, I realise I cannot separate the War from this cover. It was posted from Ceres on 'JA 8 02' to England by a soldier in the British Army, (see Army Number bottom right). Ceres was not the most loyal part of the Cape. The town and surrounding farms had considerable sympathies for the Republican cause. Indeed, a young lad with an English surname from the neighbouring Prince Alfred Hamlet area sided with the Boers, was captured and shot by the British for treason. General Smuts was from nearby Riebeeck West area. The Afrikaans side of my family in Calvinia were so strongly pro-Republican my great uncle became a Cape Rebel with General Smuts and Maritz. He received an 'Oudstryders' pension when the Nats came to power.
Circa 1901. Maitland Army Camp. Pinelands Forestry Station in the distance. Oude Molen behind the sentry's back.
LOT 191. Kenny Napier Auction.
"Transvaal 1d dual plate cards x 2 with VRI overprint and Cape Colony British Camp scenes affixed."
Estimate R150-R200. Reserve R100. MY BID: R300. SOLD: R320!
The above is an image of an item that I recently failed to win in a Kenny Napier Auction. It is captioned "Sentry on Duty. Maitland Camp. Royal Horse Guards Blue." The view is towards the east. The distant 'hill' is the Hottentot's Holland mountains away across the Cape Flats. The trees are presumably the pines of the forestry station that would become South Africa's first Garden City in 1922. I believe that the structure behind the sentry is the base of the Oude Moulen Mill. There is also a water tower and a chimney. Could this be a part of the Alexander Institution? Your thoughts please!
Camp Road, Pinelands is where I grew up in the 1950s and 60s. In those days you could walk across a piece of undeveloped land to Oude Molen Station. Today the station has gone and the land is a business site. I remember catching snakes and scorpions there. When I sat on Oude Molen station waiting for a train to take me to Cape Town I could see (yellow-green line of sight) from the platform the remains of the eponymous old mill in the distance atop a low rise. More closely by across the railway track stood old water troughs used for horses, as well as other broken and rusted bits and pieces. I always wondered why and how they had come to be there and why they were abandoned. I thought it was something to do with the barrenness of the sandy ground which was broken with outcrops of koffieklip, a form of ironstone. It was not a verdant pasture like the banks of the Black River. I realise now that when the war ended the British Army simply abandoned Maitland Camp. Some 60 years would pass before the land was developed. When Oude Molen Station was built its intended purpose was to serve the needs of Pinelands and Ndabeni only ie. it had no western entrance.
There is some doubt as to which mill this is. Many early mills were built at the Cape but the vigour of the south-easter did for most of them. When Oude Molen mill was built in 1718, it was one of the first to be built by imported VOC masons and carpenters whose job it was to build something more robust. Only with time did it become known as the Oude Molen. A new Mill (Dutch. 'Nieuwe Molen') was built in the grounds of what would become the Alexandra Institution in 1782. It still stands. Although the Alexandra Institution and the Maitland Camp were neighbours I cannot confirm that my Oude Molen is not the Nieuwe Molen. Sorry... The tower of a nilll survived on a rise between the Black River Parkway and Maitland. I do not know if is still there.
The Maitland Army Camp had a road that lead out eastwards into the undeveloped bush of Port Jackson wattle that became known as Camp Road (in red). Directly behind our house was a strip of bush, known as 'The Bush' - my adventure playground - which separated our house from the Ndabeni Industrial Estate. It ran more-or-less parallel to Camp Road and the path that led to the Oude Molen Station. Looking at my map which is embellished freehand from memory the line of Old Mill (blue) and Camp Road appear to lead towards a mill within Maitland Camp. I will have to check this and Bellevue POW camp out next time I am in SA.