Darling Museum and the Creamery Corner

I undertook another visit to Darling Museum today. The West Coast covers a large area and there are many things to see, but there won’t be another Museum quite like this for us to visit.Darling was founded in 1853 on a farm called Langfontein and named after Sir Henry Charles Darling, then Lieutenant Governor of the Cape. At the end of the Nineteenth Century a creamery was established here by Swedish settlers, Moller and Threnstrom. A local lady, Baby Basson felt that the history of the creamery should be preserved and that was how the Darling Museum was started. Today, it is possible to spend many hours (or days) in the Museum with its well-furnished

Read more »

An Antique Washing Machine

In 1861 a British lady who lived in Cape Town, wrote:“It is an amazing sight to stroll up towards ‘Platteklip’ in the afternoon, and there watch the hundreds of dusky damsels lathering and wringing, banging and pounding our unfortunate garments in the brooks that come leaping down from ‘Table Mountain’. The bushes are covered for miles with snowy clothing; and these women are obliged to be up very early indeed in the morning to secure the pools for washing”I love this piece, don’t you? It goes further to describe the little kids playing around the washerwomen.I came upon this washing machine with a wooden barrel in our large Darling Museum. According

Read more »

You are welcome, very welcome!

The modern malls have entrances on many sides which defeat the purpose of architecture. First you search for parking in an infuriatingly complicated maze. You better remember that you have parked at R15 on the red coded floor with the fish enblem and not on the blue coded floor with the bird. Then of course there will be no entrance in sight, it might be one floor up in the lift and it may be called Gate 1,2,3, 8,9 or whatever.So let us rather gather our senses and take the West Coast road. Turn inland into Darling and when you reach the stop street at the main road, cross right over into Long Street. At the end of Long, turn right, and there you will

Read more »

Enduring Elegance

The tourist brochures like to describe Darling as the little town with beautifully restored Victorian cottages and ancient trees. This grouping shows up both those elements. I saw it when I stood in the parking area of Darling Museum where the pretty house is framed by very tall eucalyptus trees. When trying to find out more about Victorian architecture on the Internet, I found some very opiniated reasoning that broekie lace, half-vaulted corrigated iron roofs over the veranda and other bits of iron fretwork and ceilings were used to hide bad building design. I cannot subscribe to this opinion as the homes portray the way that the Industrial Age not

Read more »

Victorian Broekie Lace

On a sunny winter's day, I drive into Darling. Here, away from the ocean, the blue colour of the sky seems more intense. The homes in the older Victorian residential area are a joy to behold and I park here and there to take a walk. A profusion of foliage and deep dark verandas contrast with the light white walls and iron fretwork on some of the stoeps. This is overfeed of the senses and I realise that it is going to very difficult to condense this town into just a few paintings!Victorian homes are relics from a time when curliqued designs and filigree castings were very popular. All hardware, including molded metal ceilings were made possible by the

Read more »