Pieter Kruger House
The home of Paul Kruger’s son, Pieter, who inherited Boekenhoutfontein from his father
by Professor Garth Benneyworth, Head of Heritage Studies, Sol Plaatje University.
Locality
Take the N4 west through Rustenburg and take Exit 169 to the Ottoman Highway north. After 10km take the 1st exit at the roundabout onto the R565. After 2.3km the entrance to Kedar Heritage Lodge is on the left. Enquire at reception for access to the Kruger houses.
What can be seen
The house is not currently open to the public. It is being developed as a museum emphasising the role of black people, women, children and concentration camps during the South African War.
PIETER KRUGER HOUSE – BOEKENHOUTFONTEIN
Pieter Kruger’s House at Boekenhoutfontein
Narrative
When Paul Kruger became President of the South African Republic, he and his wife Gezina left Boekenhoutfontein to live in Pretoria. The capital was more two day’s journey away and management of the farm from that distance was no longer practical, so his son Pieter took over the running of the Boekenhoutfontein. It is unclear when Pieter moved into one of the existing houses before building his own, but in the late 1890s he completed the fine late Victorian homestead now called the Pieter Kruger House. It is similar in architectural style to President Paul Kruger’s house in Church Street, Pretoria, with an elevated front veranda surrounded by a wooden balustrade. The corrugated iron pitched roof was characteristic of the late Victorian era and something of a luxury in the rural Transvaal.
In the 1980s the Simon van der Stel Foundation used the house as the museum curator’s residence and the surrounding garden wall was built at that time to give some privacy; it was not part of the original Kruger house.
During the South African War (1899-1902) Pieter Kruger left the farm to serve on commando and his wife Cecilia and children moved into a house in Rustenburg. The house and several treasures, including the family Bible, were left in the care of the Bafokeng. It was a dark time for the occupants of Boekenhoutfontein. Pieter was captured in the Free State in June 1900 and sent to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) as a prisoner-of-war. Two months later his aging father went into exile in Switzerland, never to return.
Soon after the start of the war, Kgosi Linchwe, chief of the Bakgatla, entered the war on the side of the British. His armies swept through the western Transvaal, plundered Boer farms and attacked Boer sympathisers such as the Bafokeng. Boekenhoutfontein was ransacked and temporarily occupied by Linchwe’s brother, Segale, who “took delicious pleasure in occupying Piet Kruger’s abandoned house and carting away symbols of Boer elegance such as a new pump organ”.
Pieter and Cecilia Kruger returned to the farm in 1903 to repair the damage and continue farming until his death in 1911 and his in 1921.