The Cape teak peg top table

In the 18th-century Cape, small rectangular tables were a staple in households, gracing both the opulent townhouses of wealthy free-burghers as well as the modest homes of trekboers in remote regions. Known as tea-tables, these pieces appear in household inventories as early as the 1670s (Woodward, 1982: p133). They were typically placed in the voorkamer- the main parlour, where Cape families welcomed guests and hosted social gatherings.

The Cape teak peg top table with the top subsequently fixed to the base

In the simpler, often single-roomed homes of inland farmers, these tables were positioned under a window near the front door, with one short side against the wall.  In the inventories of two neighbouring farms of Aan de Breede Rivier, namely Sahras Rivier en Boesmans Rivier we also find tea-tables listed. MOOC8/7.63: Henderina Steevensz, 24 September 1753, the farm Saraasrivier, 1 thee tafel, and MOOC8/44.52 Gabruel Jakobus Leroe, Johanna Aletta Sanneberg, 2 Januarij 1828, the farm Bosjemans Rievier in the voorkamer 2 teetavels.

The Cape teak peg top table with the top secured to the base with four pegs

These tables, often called stretcher or peg-top tables, were crafted from materials like imported teak, local stinkwood, yellowwood, or cedarwood in the Sandveld region. Their design features baluster-turned legs, a simple stretcher, and peg-runners to secure the top and base.

Detail of the peg-runners securing the top to the base

While researching the old inventories of deceased estates at the Cape, 1692 to 1834, I learned a lot about the layout of the old Cape houses in the descriptions of the rooms and its contents. I discovered that there would almost always be a table or two with a konfoor in the voorhuis (reception room), for receiving guests.

The Boer's Voorhuis by Charles Bell, 1850

After restoring the original front of the Towerwater main house and reinstating the voorhuis, we decided to introduce furniture that most likely would have been found there originally. The table of choice was a Cape teak side table with a wavey stretcher. Stretcher tables, together with the gate-leg variety are the earliest of the Cape-made tables.

17th Century table, G. E. Pearce, Eighteenth Century Furniture in South Africa, 1960 

As Cape teak tables with wavey stretchers date from the 17^th and 18^th century, the decision to buy one was easier to make than to find one to buy. Our first Cape teak table we bought in Pretoria in 2014. The teak that was used for furniture making in the 17^th and 18^th century at the Cape came mostly from the East. The VOC (Dutch East India Company) used teak for the crates that they used to ship produce in, sometimes the teak from these crates was used to make fine furniture.

Peg, thumbnail edge and rounded corners, drawer pull and leg detail of the peg top table

Stretcher detail of the peg top table

According to Hans Fransen, these tables in the baroque style, usually have baluster or occasionally barley-sugar twisted legs, always with H- or X-shaped stretchers. The tops are rectangular and often have slightly set-back quadrant-shaped corners. This small 'occasional' table on four legs sometimes has a removable top attached by pegs to a batten on the side of the frame.

Leg, drawer pull, Thumbnail edge and rounded corners detail of the fixed top table

Stretcher detail of the fixed top table

In his book Cape Furniture, published in 1960, M.G. Atmore describes the tables as Peg Top Turned Leg Style. Atmore used the leg shape of the table as the chief characteristic feature for categorising tables into different styles.

Examples of table legs, M.G.Atmore, Cape Furniture, 1965

The tables had 3 types of stretchers, the box, H and X.   The box is known to feature from the 16th century, the H type and plain X from the first half of the 17th century, and the shaped X from the early 18th century.  

Examples of strechers, M.G.Atmore, Cape Furniture, 1965

In Cape Country Furniture, M Baraitser and A Obholzer, 1971, the tables are described as stretcher tables. They maintained that the term peg-top is a rather confusing one as it was formerly used to describe the shape of the leg.  In fact, most of these tables have tops that are pegged to the under-carriage, and the term peg-top came to denote the method of construction rather than a specific style of leg.

Our second Cape teak table was bought at a wine farm in Somerset West. This was a true peg top table with the top still being secured to the base with four pegs. The one table has a full width drawer, and the other has a central drawer. One table has a single plank teak top, and the other has a two-plank teak top, both with a thumbnail edge and rounded corners. Each table has turned baluster legs terminating in flattened bun feet with a wavey cross stretcher between the four legs. Both the brass lion head ring handle and the rosette plate ring handle date from the last quarter of the 18^th century. 

These tables add the correct historical detail to the voorkamer at Towerwater. Brassware from Robertson craftsmen and ceramics from Olifantsfontein complete the celebration of traditional South African craftsmanship.

Sources:

Cape Antique Furniture, Lennox van Onselen, 1959

Cape Furniture, M.G.Atmore, 1965

Eighteenth Century Furniture in South Africa, G. E. Pearce ,1960

Cape Country Furniture, M Baraitser and A Obholzer, 1971

The Interior of the Cape House 1670 – 1740, CS Woodward, 1982

Three Centuries of South African Art, Hans Fransen, 1982

Town Furniture of the Cape, M Baraitser and A Obholzer, 1987

Cape Furniture and Metalware, Deon Viljoen and Piér Rabe, 2001

Domestic Interiors at the Cape and in Batavia 1602-1795, Various Contributers, 2002

Furniture from European trading posts at the Cape of Good Hope and in South-East Asia 17^th – 19^th Centuries, Deon Viljoen, 2003

Cape Antique Furniture, Michael Baraitser and Anton Obholzer, 2004

Ou-Kaapse Meubels, Studies in Style, Matilda Burden, 2013

Dressing a Neoclassical four poster bed

Years ago, when Hettie Pool still had her antique shop on the corner of High and Trappes Streets, in Worcester, we popped in to say hello to Ena Steyn, a friend’s mom, who managed the shop. The shop occupied one of the original thatched townhouses, dating from the 1800’s.  We took the opportunity to look around the many rooms that were filled with antiques.

Ena showed us a rural Cape Neoclassical four poster bed made from yellowwood and stinkwood. Although the Neoclassical period in Europe spanned the years 1760 to 1820, the stylistic Neoclassical period at the Cape of Good Hope occurred a bit later, featuring in the years from 1790 to 1870. (Source: Ou-Kaapse Meubels, Matilda Burden, 2013).

The bed embodied the classical characteristics of the period, namely, clarity of form with strong horizontal and vertical lines that give it a timeless feel. We really liked the bed and decided that it would be perfect for the master bedroom at Towerwater. When we bought the bed, it was undressed, meaning that it had only the stinkwood frame resting on the top of the four posts without canopy or hangings.

We decided on the final colours for the bedroom during the latest round of renovations and refurbishments. This included the curtains, canopy, bed hangings and lampshades. In pursuit of historical inspiration, I could find no accurate visual record of how a typical canopy and bed hangings of this period in the Cape, might have looked.

In his book, Cape Antique Furniture, published in April 1959, Lennox van Onselen describes bedroom furniture in chapter five. He states that, “Cape bedroom furniture usually consisted of a fourposter bed, an armoire, a washstand and a dressing table on which stood a dressing mirror.” He says about the four-poster bed, “They were adopted as a necessity in the country districts where living quarters and sleeping apartments were not always differentiated. The curtains with which the sides could be enclosed gave a measure of privacy in overcrowded rooms and the canopy afforded protection from dust which inevitably sifted through the makeshift ceiling.”

Describing the construction of the bed, he says, “At the Cape, the craftsmen followed a middle of the road policy. The posters were turned or fluted and the bedhead or end was very often embossed with scrollwork and carving. The canopy, which was sometimes decorated with the shell or oakleaf motif, never reached the heights of extravagance it did in Europe.”

In her unpublished thesis, The interior of the Cape house, 1670 to 1714, submitted in May 1982, Carolyn Woodward gives detailed descriptions of the beds found in a Cape house during this period on pages 100 to 111. She found that the word “Ledekant” was used to describe a four-poster bed at the Cape. In the inventories there are several mentions of a “ledekant (four poster bed) met behangsel (canopy and curtains)” but the only indication of what it might look like was the mention of the colour.

After consulting several books on Cape furniture, namely, Cape Antique Furniture, Lennox van Onselen, 1959, Cape Furniture, M G Atmore, 1965, Cape Country Furniture, M Baraitser and A Oberholzer, 1971, Town Furniture of the Cape, M Baraitser an A Oberholzer, 1987, Cape Antique Furniture, M Baraitser and A Oberholzer, 2004 and Ou-Kaapse Meubels, Matilda Burden, 2013, we decided to go with a plain canopy with a scallop design.

The colours selected for dressing the bed were inspired by the Royal blue and Ochre glass in the happy door leading to the ensuite bathroom. The canopy was made using Royal Blue fabric trimmed with antique gold braid. We decided to replace the traditional heavy curtains around the bed with mosquito net. This, given that the function of the curtains would be more to keep out prying mosquitos during summer than for privacy. In a balmy summer, heavy curtains enclosing the bed might also prove unbearable. A mosquito net, however, would allow for comfortable ventilation while offering protection.

The curtains seen through the mosquito net

Dressing the bed gives us a sense of progress and completion in the ongoing Towerwater restoration project. Detailing the interior to match the exterior of the buildings, long formed part of the dream to restore and capture the essence of a Cape period house. Using period South African furniture, porcelain, fabrics and other design elements, made it a bit more challenging but so much more rewarding in the end.

Now we can go to bed in a dressed four-poster described as the king of beds and a bed fit for a king.

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