Reflections of Limewash

With the thatch roofs of the Towerwater buildings being serviced, it was the perfect opportunity to use the support structures on the roof to maintain the lime plaster roof ridging. Keith mixed lime plaster comprising sand, lime, and Portland cement in the original ratio of 8:2:1 and the thatchers repaired the roof ridging while they were on the roof.

Fungai took the opportunity to lime wash the roof ridging when the plaster work was dry and cured. His task was made easier with the roof supports tied through the thatch to the roof structure. Watching him lime wash the roof, and gable ridging was quite hair raising.

Keith painted the entrance gates, pickets, and the doors of the main house while Fungai limewashed the garden walls, pillars as well as the walls of the buildings.

A limewashed wall seems whiter than any other white paint can achieve. Reading up on limewash, I came across a very interesting description that may explain the reason. Limewash is a mixture of slaked lime (calcium hydroxide) in water which sets slowly by absorbing carbon dioxide from the air. This chemical reaction produces crystals of calcite (calcium carbonate). The crystals have a dual refractive index, meaning that the light entering each crystal is reflected in duplicate. This results in the characteristic surface glow of limewashed surfaces. This is not found in other decorative finishes.

Limewash was not used for primarily for its decorative purposes, but it was a treatment intended to protect early mud structures against the worst weather. Limewash allows a building to breathe, and that is very important when a building is built with mud or sunbaked bricks, as in the case of the Towerwater buildings. Moisture can move freely in and out of the bricks preventing the moisture from becoming trapped in the bricks and causing their decay and that of the masonry. Limewash also serves as cleansing agent and basically sterilizes the walls.

The freshly limewashed buildings of Towerwater is blinding in the Karoo sun. Looking at the brilliant beauty of the white walls, I was reminded of the coating of dual reflective crystals on the walls. Luckily, the pebbled plaster finish on the walls softens the glare by reflecting the bright sunlight in thousands of different directions.

The property looks fresh and manicured and the engraved name stands out against the white of the gate pillar, Towerwater aan de Breede. For now the enchantment of the limewashed buildings nestling among the green of the garden match the enchantment of the canal and the garden it feeds.

Other posts about limewash at Towerwater

Thatch roof maintenance and summer rains

Vernacular building skills and plaster mixes

Details of a lime-washed room

The Line of Beauty

Thatch roof maintenance and summer rains

A reed thatch roof, like any other roof, needs to be maintained regularly to last as long as possible. The maintenance of the buildings was planned for November this year. This maintenance includes the combing of the thatch roofs, limewashing the buildings, painting of the pickets, and limewashing the garden walls and pillars.

Keith attended to the maintenance of the corrugated iron flat-roof section over the lounge, library, and bathrooms earlier this year. No leaks experienced during the unseasonal rain showers in October and November confirmed that he did a good job of waterproofing the roof.

Unfortunately, the same unseasonal downpours in November prevented the local thatcher from the nearby town of Montagu from attending to the thatch roofs uninterrupted.

The cottage thatch roof before maintenance

The same thatcher that installed the cottage roof in 1997 undertook the maintenance of both roofs. With his two sons now helping their father, it is the third generation of thatcher’s that learnt their skill from one of the renowned thatchers of Elim in the south-western Cape.

Different stages of thatch maintenance on the main roof

The roof of the main house was restored by Dal Josaphat Restoration in 2007. They undertook a careful reconstruction of the roof structure carefully following the traditional vernacular construction methodology of buildings of this date and region. Apart from roof timbering techniques changing over the centuries, regional practices made for different roof structures in different regions. In the case of Towerwater, the most obvious regional features are characterised by the fairly low pitch and squat wide dormers on the main house. The reconstruction therefore ensured a roof that was historically correct to the age and location of the homestead.

The maintenance of the thatch roof involved combing, compacting, and the removal of any mouldy thatch. Combing the roof was done by hand using a stiff bunch of thatch that was also used to compact the thatch before smoothing it with a leggett.

A leggett and fresh thatch

The ends of the thatch that forms the outer layer of the roof, slowly deteriorate from exposure to the elements. Combing or brushing is the process of removing the outer layer of thatch from the entire surface of the roof. Combing or brushing prolongs the life of the thatch roof. The weather damaged outer layer of the thatch roof retains moisture that will penetrate deeper and deeper into the thatch if it is not regularly combed.

Brushing the outer layer of the thatch before compacting it

Brushing and compacting the thatch helps ensure that the surface is of the roof is smooth and compact, allowing rainwater to run off efficiently and the roof to dry quicker.

Using the leggett after adding new thatch to the roof

Outer logs are tied to the inside structure of the roof to form steps which support the thatcher’s as they comb and compact the roof. The activity of the roof being combed and compacted, transported one back to an era of craftsmen and a way of life that the buildings on the property must have experienced routinely in their lifespan.

The art of thatching has not escaped modernisation. The quiet trimming of thatch bundles to the correct length for use in compacting the roof, has now been replaced with an electric hedge trimmer. Instead of cutting one bundle at a time, several bundles can be prepared simultaneously for the workmen on the roof. The work was done faster and with less effort, but it has diminished the charm of watching the skill of craftsmen slicing through the bundles of thatch with a spar knife or sickle.

Chatting to Sammy Botha, the thatcher, I was sad to learn that the opportunity of work for his company is becoming less and less owing to more people replacing the thatch roofs of their houses with corrugated iron or other material. With the decline in demand for their skills, more and more young people in fifth, fourth, and third generation thatchers are choosing not to continue with this skill. It is sad to see this happen. One can only wonder what the future will hold for the buildings at Towerwater should local thatchers no longer be available.

The phenomenon of thatch roofs being replaced with corrugated iron is nothing new. I am reminded of a comment in Hilda’s Diary of a Cape Housekeeper by Hildagonda Duckitt published in 1902. On page 31 she writes, “The old style of building was admirably suited to this climate, the part in which the family lived being mostly on the ground-floor, the thatched roofs, so cool in summer and warm in winter, were very picturesque, with their ornamental gable-ends. All about Stellenbosch, French Hoek, and Ceres, these pretty homesteads still abound. Mrs. Trotter’s book. Old Colonial Houses (published by Batsford), gives many beautiful specimens, but I am sorry to say that, owing to a very high rate of insurance for reed-thatched houses, the ugly corrugated iron roof is put on whenever the thatch has become too old to repair, though a reed thatch will last about forty or fifty years if carefully attended to.”

I suppose we were swimming against the tide when we removed the corrugated iron roofs of the Towerwater buildings to restore the thatch the building once had. Apart from being beautiful, the old thatch roofs are practical and perfectly regulate the climatic extremes of a Karoo climate.

With the roofs looking fresh and new with their spots of lighter and new thatch, it was time to look at the limewashing of the garden walls and buildings.

Other posts about the thatch roofs at Towerwater

Reflections of Limewash

Vernacular crafts and thatch roof repairs

Restoring Cape Vernacular Architecture  – The Main house

The reality of dreams

The serendipitous Scottish shortbread stamp

We are busy attending to maintenance issues at Towerwater. The biggest maintenance issue at this time of year is the whitewashing of the walls and buildings on the property. To prepare the walls for limewashing requires a lot of scraping to remove any loose limewash before applying the new coats to the walls.

When we have enough building rubble and garden refuse to make a justifiable load, I load the bakkie and take it all to the dump. At the dump, the building rubble and the garden refuse sections, are in different areas.

What I normally do is load the bags of building rubble last to offload them first and then I drive to where I must dump the garden refuse.

When I offloaded the first bag of building rubble, lying in the dust near my feet, what looked like a medallion with an eagle on it caught my eye. After offloading all the building rubble, I picked up what looked like a very dirty carved medallion of an eagle.

On closer inspection, I realized that it was not a medallion but a piece of carved wood. I picked up the black dome shaped wooden object by what looked like a knob at the end. On the side of the dome was stamped “Made in England”. After a closer look at the carving on the flat part of the dome, I saw that it was a thistle flower and leaves.

I remembered where I saw this emblem or something close to it. It was on a traditional Scottish shortbread. Suddenly I realized what I was holding in my hand, it was an antique Scottish shortbread stamp.

Now I was really baffled. What was it doing amongst building rubble at the Bonnievale dump? Perhaps it was lying in an old kitchen that was demolished and carted along with the rubble to the dump. The fact that it survived intact was a miracle.

What was an antique Scottish shortbread stamp doing in Bonnievale in the first instance? Did I perhaps pick up a piece of history that came with the Scotsman, Christopher Forrest Rigg, who formalized the water canal project that made farming in Bonnievale possible in the late 1800’s. One will never know.

Picking up a Scottish shortbread stamp so close to Christmas is serendipitous. It’s like the universe is willing us to make Scottish shortbread part of the Towerwater Christmas tradition. After sterilizing and cleaning the stamp, I oiled it with olive oil to feed the dry wood and prevent further damage.

Not to disappoint any guardian angels, we decided to make some Scottish shortbread incorporating the thistle stamp. The classic shortbread recipe is made with just three ingredients, well I suppose four at a pinch.  We used castor sugar, butter, and flour (and a pinch of salt) in the ratio of 1:2:3, sugar/butter/flour. 

The recipe is so easy to make and adjust to make more or less of this teatime treat.

Towerwater Scottish shortbread

Ingredients:

½ cup castor sugar
1 cup butter
1½ cup cake flour
a pinch of kosher salt

Method:

Cream butter, sugar, and salt together in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy.

Slowly work in the flour until a crumbly dough forms.

Place on a pastry work surface and use a rolling pin to roll into a compact rectangle to an even thickness of 10mm, or put the pastry into a pan and compress.

Use a cookie cutter that is slightly wider than the shortbread stamp and cut your cookie before stamping it while still in the cookie cutter. This will help the dough to press into the stamp without flattening the shortbread too much.

Remember to dust the surface of the stamp with flour before stamping the shortbread each time.

Place your stamped shortbread on a greased baking tray and place it in the freezer for 30 minutes.

After taking it out of the freezer, bake your shortbread for five minutes at 200°C. Turn down the heat of the oven to 180°C and bake for further 10 to 15 minutes.

Keep an eye on your shortbread to make sure that they do not go dark. You want your shortbread to be a light cream colour.

Let the shortbread cool down before dusting it with castor sugar. Store in an airtight container.

Note: Remember that the flavour of the shortbread will depend chiefly on the quality and flavour of the butter.

And that is how the serendipitous shortbread stamp found at the dump ended up making delicacies in the Towerwater kitchen.

Cobbles and clay for the driveway

One afternoon I found Keith where he was studying the driveway, my quizzical look prompted him to explain his next project to me. He was going to cobble the driveway with river stones from the historical floodplain of the Breederiver in the valley.

Clearly inspired by the property name engraved on the marble plaque on the gate pillar, he decided that the entrance to the property needs to be elevated to match it.

When one is in tune with vernacular building practices one sees building materials in everything. One day on our way back to Towerwater coming from Swellendam, we passed a farm where there were mountains of stones pushed to the edge of ploughed fields.

I know how Keith has been longing to get his hands on those stones, and this day he asked if I could see the name of the farm and the owner on whose farms the stones were. I could get the farm name and we went home and the next day Keith did not only manage to get the farmer’s name, but Keith’s contact managed to arrange that Keith could go and fetch some stone.

On Keith’s question as to how many stones he may take the farmer pointed to the mountains of stone and said, “knock yourself out”, meaning that he can take as many as he needed. Keith started the painstaking job of cobbling the driveway after the first load.

After working out which shape stone worked best as a cobble, the second and subsequent loads were much easier to select without having to take back any that were unsuitable for the task.

Watching Keith build this big stone puzzle with determination, it was clear that when he set his mind to it nothing was going to derail him. The best thing was to support him. Every day after I had finished working, we set off to pick up stones for cobbling the next day.

When the cobbles were all in place, I learnt that the preferred grout for this vernacular driveway is a mixture of clay, lime, and cement. On a Saturday morning we climbed into the old faithful Toyota Hilux bakkie loaded with spades and buckets like big children setting off for the beach. Our destination to look for natural clay, was not the beach but a patch of recently disturbed veld outside the town.

The grout mix of clay, lime and cement

The art of grout

The first load of clay we took was in the form of big lumps of clay that we decided to stomp into fine clay again. We soon learnt that breaking down big clay lumps into clay dust is not that easy and is back breaking work.

The second load of clay we sifted directly into the buckets at the source. It took a bit longer to collect the clay, but it was quicker and easier to mix the fine clay into the grout. We mixed the grout in an 8:2:1 ratio, being 8 clay: 2 lime: 1 cement. Then we brushed the dry grout into the gaps between the stones and wet it with a fine spray of water to dry overnight. We could not ask for a more natural look for the cobbles, the grout turned out to be a very nice red-looking clay between the cobbles.

The next day, after photographing the completed cobbles, I discovered a serendipitous stone heart in amongst the cobbles. This was surely proof that Keith had put his heart into cobbling the driveway for Towerwater.

Buying a bakkis for breadmaking

One of the most important pieces of furniture in a traditional Cape kitchen from the earliest times up to the early years of the 1900’s must be the bakkis or baking trough. Up until at least the 1920’s many remote farms in the Cape had to be self-sustainable, and the kitchen was the heart of the farm complex. Bread was baked for everybody working and living on the farm. As large-scale baking was a laborious process made more challenging by a scarcity of wood fuel for the ovens, baking was centralised either in a bakhuis (bakery) or in the kitchen of the homestead. The wood-fired oven was generally situated to the rear left in the hearth in larger homesteads or in a freestanding outside oven for smaller houses. Every homestead would have the necessary equipment for the purpose of making bread. This would include, amongst other things, a meelkis (flour chest) and a bakkis (baking trough).

The bakkis (dough trough) in the foreground

The meelkis was a large chest with three or four compartments for storing different kinds of flour. According to Dr Mary Cook in her book “The Cape Kitchen”, published in 1973, the compartments were used for storing coarse meal, fine (sifted) meal, bran and perhaps some other meal.

The meelkis (flour chest)

The meelkis on the Towerwater loft is made of Oregon pine and has a sloping lid with hinges. It houses three compartments and is 750mm high X 1350mm long X 500mm wide. It stands flat on the floor although one does find meelkiste which are raised off the ground on low feet.

The compartmentalised meelkis (flour chest) for storing different types of flour

The Towerwater meelkis was sourced at an auction of Paul Roux’s shop contents in Ashton, after his death in December 2005. Although the woodfired oven in the kitchen can accommodate many loaves for baking, I doubt if the meelkis will ever need to be used for the storing of flour at Towerwater.

The demand for loaves of bread has shrunk like the farm the house stood on that many years ago. We might not have a need for storing large quantities of flour, but it felt right that the house should once again have a meelkis as a point of reference for its restored large wood-fired oven.

The bakoond (wood-fired oven) door in the hearth

We were lucky to find a Cape meelkis on auction when we did. We were not so lucky when it came to a bakkis. When Keith started to explore the making of authentic Cape sweet sourdough yeast and bread, the need for a bakkis escalated. Keith believed that the ancient micro-organisms captured in a well-used bakkis will aid in the making of the perfect traditional Cape yeast and bread.

A close-up of the typical dovetailing detail

The sides of the bakkis slopes inward. This feature aids in the kneading of the dough in the trough. The lid of the bakkis is loose so that it can be removed to allow for the kneading of the dough. According to Dr Mary Cook, the lids in the earlier bakkiste typically had stinkwood edging.

A view from above showing detail of the lid trim

An example of hinged "bakkis", source: Ou Kaapse Meubels, Dr Mathilda Burden, 2013

The bakkis that has hinges is probably a broodkis (bread chest) for storing bread (DR Mary Cook, The Cape Kitchen, 1973 – p68), or a meelkis that had legs added to it (Dr Mathilda Burden, Ou Kaapse Meubels, 2013 – p35, or a wakis (wagon chest) on legs (M Baraitser and A Obholzer, Cape Country Furniture, 1971 – p255).

Bakkis, lid removed for kneading dough

I was fortunate enough to buy a bakkis at an auction in Robertson recently. At last Keith will be able to pursue his breadmaking passion with the aid of a traditional bakkis.

Bread, from flour in the meelkis, kneading in the bakkis to baking in the bakoond

I doubt if anybody else has bought an antique bakkis to use for its intended purpose. The bakkis is a proud addition to the collection of Cape furniture at Towerwater. Currently, the bakkis is used to proof the regular fresh yeast dough before baking the bread and to store the bread after it has been baked. The plan is to use it to grow the sweet sourdough culture and then to mix and knead the dough in it for a true Cape sweet sourdough bread. 

Images of bakkiste, source:Cape Country Furniture, M. Baraitser and A. Obholzer, 1971

Images of bakkiste, source:Cape Country Furniture, M. Baraitser and A. Obholzer, 1971

Sources:

Cape Furniture, M. G. Atmore,1965

Cape Country Furniture, Michael Baraitser and Anton Obholzer, 1971

The Cape Kitchen, Dr Mary Cook, 1973

Cape Antique Furniture, Michael Baraitser and Anton Obholzer, 2004

Ou Kaapse Meubels, Dr Mathilda Burden, 2013