Towerwater and the art of Cooperage

Old houses often reveal their histories in small and unexpected ways. Sometimes it is not the grand architectural features that speak the loudest, but rather the quiet details that have survived the passing of time.

During a family visit one weekend, such a detail revealed itself on the kitchen door at Towerwater. Beneath several layers of old paint, an oval brass plaque slowly emerged. Its inscription was simple: “FB Bruwer Maker.”

The plaque was left exactly where it was found. It had clearly been there for many years, quietly witnessing the daily rhythms of the kitchen. Yet the identity of the man behind the name remained a mystery.

The answer would only appear many years later.

The "FB Bruwer waterbalie" on auction 

Nearly twenty-five years passed before another reference to the name surfaced. At the October 2016 auction of Strauss & Co, lot number 351 caught my attention. The catalogue described it as “A Cape teak brass-bound waterbalie and stand, F B Bruwer, Robertson, late 19th/early 20th century.”

Another example of a FB Bruwer made "waterbalie" with his name plaque on the front

In that moment, the small brass plaque on the Towerwater kitchen door began to make sense.

For the first time we knew what F.B. Bruwer had made. He was a cooper from Robertson — a craftsman whose trade was to shape wood into the barrels, tubs and vessels essential to daily life in the Breede River valley.

A collection of antique brass bound containers made by a cooper

The discovery raised another question: why would a cooper’s maker’s plaque appear on the kitchen door at Towerwater? Was there perhaps a deeper historical connection between F.B. Bruwer and the property?

To explore that possibility, I turned to the genealogy of Francois Bartholomeus Bruwer.

 A Dutch ship entering Table Bay circa 1700

The Bruwer story in South Africa reaches back to the late seventeenth century. The family’s progenitor, Estienne Bruere, boarded the VOC ship Voorschoten on 31 December 1687 at Delftshaven in the Netherlands. The vessel reached Saldanha Bay on 13 April 1688, after which the Huguenot settlers were escorted to Table Bay by the ship Jupiter.

Estienne was originally a wagon-maker by trade but, like many Huguenot arrivals encouraged by the Dutch East India Company, he soon turned to farming. In 1692 he was granted the loan farm Rust-en-Werk in Daljosafat in the Drakenstein valley. By 1712 he had moved his family to the farm Voorkeyker near present-day Wolseley in the Land van Waveren region.

A water brass bound water container made for wagons

Over time the family also received grazing licences along the Breede River, firmly linking the Bruwers to the region that would eventually include Robertson.

The generations that followed continued this agricultural tradition. Johannes (Jean) Bruire, later known as Bruwer (1722–1767), settled in the Drakenstein region and married Johanna Maria van der Merwe. Their son Daniel Bruwer (1765–1852) lived during a formative period in the Cape Colony as the descendants of the Huguenots gradually integrated into Dutch colonial society.

From this lineage came Herculaas Philippus Johannes Bruwer (1824–1898) and eventually Francois Bartholomeus Bruwer (1856–1932).

On his marriage record, Francois Bartholomeus Bruwer is described as a “Kuiper” — the Dutch word for cooper. A cooper was a highly skilled woodworker who crafted staved wooden vessels bound with iron or wooden hoops so that they remained tight and durable. In rural agricultural communities these containers were indispensable. Wine, brandy, grain, water and dairy products all relied on barrels and tubs for storage and transport.

The marriage record of FB Bruwer recording his profession as cooper

In wine-producing districts such as Robertson, coopers played an important role in the rural economy. A cooper’s workshop in the late nineteenth century would have produced a wide range of vessels: wine barrels for fermentation and storage, large casks for shipping, smaller kegs for spirits, buckets and pails for water, washing tubs and troughs, butter churns and the sturdy waterbalies used in households and on farms.

Making wine barrels - David Teniers the Younger (1610–90), The Wine Harvest

It is one of these waterbalies that appeared in the 2016 Strauss & Co auction catalogue. The vessel was made in Robertson and carried the brass maker’s plaque of F.B. Bruwer — a later example of the one discovered on the Towerwater kitchen door.

The remaining question was how his name became attached to Towerwater.

The answer may lie in the intertwined histories of local families. The first clear references to buildings on the property appear in the title deeds of the farm Bosjesmansdrift. On 13 June 1873 the six portions of the farm were finally transferred in full and freehold title. Portion 4 — the section that includes the core of the farm and its cluster of buildings — was transferred to the Steyn brothers on 30 June 1873.

An 18th century "teebalie", brass bound water bucket and a pickle barrel

Although it might seem modest on paper, the property measured an impressive 1290 morgen and 211 square roods. Interestingly, the deed specifically excluded two houses that remained in the possession of Jacobus Le Roux.

The Le Roux connection becomes significant when the family history is considered.

A member of the Le Roux family had already held a portion of the farm under perpetual quitrent lease in 1843. After several subdivisions, the land eventually became Lot 75 and was transferred in 1928 from the church council to Gabriel Petrus Jacobus le Roux as Erf 608 — land that today forms part of Towerwater.

Gabriël Petrus Jacobus le Roux, born in 1872 in the Robertson district, was himself a wagon-maker — a respected rural craft at the turn of the twentieth century. He married Anna Elizabet le Roux and lived most of his life in the area, passing away in 1962.

"Botterkarrings"or brass bound butter churns

His older sister, Aletta Johanna le Roux, born around 1860, married Francois Bartholomeus Bruwer on 18 October 1881.

Through this marriage two long-established Breede River families became linked — the Le Roux wagon-makers and the Bruwer coopers. In a rural economy shaped by farming and craft, these trades were closely connected.

It is therefore quite possible that Francois Bartholomeus Bruwer was already associated with the Le Roux household before the marriage in 1881. A vessel he produced — perhaps a water barrel or waterbalie — may have found its way onto the property. The small brass maker’s plaque attached to it may later have been fixed to the kitchen door, where successive coats of paint quietly preserved it for more than a century.

In this way, a modest oval plaque connects Towerwater not only to a local craftsman but also to the intertwined histories of families, trades and farms along the Breede River. The mystery of the words “FB Bruwer Maker” was finally resolved.

The buyer of the waterbalie at Strauss & Co in 2016 acquired not only a fine piece of Cape craftsmanship, but a piece of provenance that reaches back through generations to the Breede River valley.

The Kitchen door at Towerwater and the plaque seen through an original screen door

And so the brass nameplate on our kitchen door, once a gentle mystery, now speaks of continuity: of Huguenot roots, of skilled hands shaping wood and metal, and of the quiet ways families and trades wove themselves into the fabric of this old place.

Note: Some images of cooperage sourced online as examples of Cape Cooperage