Cape Dutch Architecture - 21 Gables On Spier Wine Farm

21 Gables On Spier Wine Farm

Of all the three hundred or so Cape Dutch farm complexes in the Cape, all with their own centre and end gables, it is Spier that boasts the greatest number of these: twenty-one in all, all beautifully preserved. As is happens, these twenty-one gables represent half a century in time and virtually the entire range of styles of that period. A leisurely walk around the farmyard will therefore amount to a lesson in art history!

The Cape gables are not the only features by which to date the farm buildings. Doors and windows also changed over time. Earlier, 'Dutch' windows have sturdy frames set almost flush with the outside of the walls, with small, standard-size glass panes. During the 'English' period, from the early 19th century onward, larger window panes became available, frames were more slender and were set back in the wall, while in sash window the upper halves were made to slide down while in the Dutch sashes they were made a rest on a fixed 'transom'. Instead of square upper lights over doors, 'fan'lights, semicircular with radiating glazing bars, came into use, while the doors themselves changed from horizontally divided ('stable-type') to vertically divided and panelled. This latter type of joinery is well represented in the facade of the main homestead, of which the date on the front gable, 1822, indeed firmly belong to the English period. But at the back, the earlier type is still in evidence, also showing that the house is much older than 1822, probably by as much as half a century.

The farm of Spier was 'granted" by the Dutch East India Company ('VOC') in 1692 to 'drummer' Arnoud Jansz or Janssen), but he had been living there since 1683. This was the time that the little refreshment post at the Cape of Good Hope, founded in 1652, was starting to spread inland and become a proper colony. A whole string of farms were developed along the Eerste Rivier – the 'first river' to be encountered by inland-moving settlers. The river is still to be found just behind the bell-tower. To service these farmers living in the 'remote inland regions', the town of Stellenbosch was established in 1685.

The name Spier is derived from the city of Speyer (Spiers in Dutch) in Germany, the birthplace of a later owner, from 1712, Hans Hendrick Hattingh. Many of the buildings now standing, and the earlier gables, were erected during the ownership of Albertus Johannes Mijburgh in the 1770s, and the later, post-1800 gables during that of Andries Christoffel van der Bijl. Both of these are still prominent Afrikaans family names.