December 3 and 4 saw the multi-million rand collection auction of antiques from the manor house at Matjiesfontein and the estate of James Douglas Logan and his heir and grandson Major John D L Buist, who died in June. James, a wealthy Scotsman, lived in Matjiesfontein in the late 1800s. He pioneered waterborne systems for sewage, owned the first private home in South Africa to have electric lighting and had the country's first flushing toilets. His friends included authors Rudyard Kipling and Olive Schreiner, Winston Churchill's father, Randolph, and Cecil John Rhodes. The collection was stored in Tweedside Manor House where James lived and which John occupied until his death. The collection was inherited by Logan's great-granddaughter, Jennifer Hart. Unwilling to keep all the items, she decided to sell.
The items on auction included a 1939 vintage car valued at over R1-million. There were also rifles, cutlery, crockery, carpets, rugs, furniture, paintings, autographed photographs, sculptures, a five-metre long billiard table and a Scottish Highland Infantry mess uniform complete with kilt and sporin. Lot 702 was a large oil on canvas painting of the grave of Cecil John Rhodes. Also on sale was signage from Matjiesfontein. The letters, papers and books that belonged to the Logan family were not on auction. These will possibly be sold at a later stage. Among them are letters between Olive Schreiner and James, as well as letters to Gertrude Logan, James' daughter. Schreiner, author of the acclaimed Story of an African Farm, lived in Matjiesfontein from 1890 to 1892. The Olive Schreiner Museum in Cradock would love to acquire the letters to add to their collections of Schreiner memorabilia.
Pierre de Villiers, a property developer from Cape Town, paid just under R1,5-million for his father's Christmas present. The retired Hermanus businessman, Charles, was at home when his son rang him to tell him that he was now the owner of the world's only 1939 Jensen Tourer. The bidding started at R800 000 and ended soon after at R1 450 000 - excluding the auctioneer's 10% commission. Pierre already owns vintage sports cars dating from the 1960s. The Jensen is a British-made legend, assembled in West Bromwich, near Birmingham.
A silver-plated soup tureen went for R36 000; a silver-plated turkey chaff dish bearing the logo of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange went for R27 000; the five-metre long billiard table sold for R31 000 while one of its antique scoreboards went for R19 000; three Hugo Naude paintings went for R22 000, R23 000 and R20 000.
Hotelier David Rawdon bought the whole town of Matjiesfontein in 1968, and one of the conditions of the deal was that Tweedside Lodge would become Rawdon’s property when John died. The home is to be turned into a spa and hotel.
James arrived in South Africa in when he was shipwrecked near Simon’s Town. He walked to Cape Town and got a job on the railways. From being a penniless porter, he built himself up into one of the wealthiest men in South Africa. He owned hotels, a wine and liquor store in Cape Town, and at one stage, he held all the railway catering contracts from Cape Town to Bulawayo. He suffered from a bad chest condition and was drawn to Matjiesfontein for the clean Karoo air. He built Tweedside Lodge and founded the village around the railway stop in the 1890s, soon turning it into a popular tourist destination. A perfectionist, he brought in the London street lamp posts that remain in the village. He arranged for the African Banking Corp (later Standard Bank) to establish an office and administer his business empire from Matjiesfontein. In partnership with the Castle Steamship Company, James offered round trips to Matjiesfontein to English travellers. By the time the Anglo-Boer War broke out in 1899, the village had become a popular health and holiday destination, drawing aristocrats from Britain and Europe. When the war started, Matjiesfontein served as a command headquarters and home to many British officers. Some of the top British regiments were based there, including the Coldstream Guards, the Seventeenth Lancers, the Middlesex Regiment and the Highland Brigade.