Contact Artefacts please if you have any comments or more information regarding this record.	Menu Home Upfront Now Up Books Towns Structures People Firms Lexicon		Auchterlonie Museum Twee Rivieren district, Northern Cape

Date: early C20 : 2004 Client: Sanparks Type: Museum Style: Vernacular Style Status: Restored   Click to view map Coordinates: 26°11'06.11" S 20°32'47.23" E Alt: 903m

Cottage built by a borehole minder under a plan by the Union Government to have a line of boreholes in the Auob River bed as watering points for Allied troops should there be an invasion from then German South West Africa (thereafter South West Africa, now Namibia) when war was declared against Germany in 1914. After the War these people were mostly forgotten. The Kgalagadi (then Kalahari) Park was declared in 1931 and these folk moved on to Kuruman. The cottage is built of the local calcite limestone, with camel thorn (Vachellia erioloba) timbers used for the roof, the only tree of any stature for kilometers around, thatched with duinriet [Elegia juncea, (?)]. The museum displays the lifestyle of the period with various outdoor ancillary structures and associated artefacts. It also holds documents related to the lives of the inhabitants of that time.