Look around, there’s enough land for everyone
ONE OF Britain’s most treasured documents, along with the Magna Carta, is the historic Commissioned in 1086 by William the Conqueror, it is a record of all the properties in Britain and parts of Wales and who lived on them, how many head of stock each contained, the important fishing grounds, forests and buildings. A complete stock-taking of the country, in fact. Officially all of Britain belonged to the king in those days, and he granted the rights to various parts of the land to his tenant barons, (from the Latin teneo, to hold) who oversaw the running of the many holdings in their area.
Apart from anything else, the was a record of the people and properties liable to pay taxes to the king.
From an historic point of view it listed, for the first time, all the properties in the country, giving subsequent historians a guide to the great families of Britain and where they lived.
It’s regarded a great honour to be able to say your ancestors – or your property – are mentioned in the
It means you’ve been around for a really long time.
I wonder whether there’s any similar record of all the property in South Africa and who owns it.
Political hot-heads constantly mutter that too much land is in white hands and should be redistributed, but I wonder whether this is entirely true.
If I look around me here in the Cape I am often amazed at the extent of land in the government’s hands. Right on my doorstep (well almost) there are hundreds of hectares of state land owned, but not used very much, by the Department of Defence.
The whole suburb of Da Gama Park is Naval property. There are some airfields which are not used much; Wingfield and Youngsfield, for instance. If you add all the nature reserves, military camps and protected areas you come to quite a big chunk of state property, much of which is not regularly used.
Wouldn’t it be interesting to future historians to make a map of the country that shows every square metre of land and to whom it belongs; In other words, for us to create our own Domesday Book.
Listing the urban areas should not present too much of a problem because all the properties and their legal owners are recorded in the deeds offices.
But who owns the great forested areas of the Eastern Cape, the escarpment and waterfalls of Mpumalanga, the rolling hills of what used to be called the Transkei and Ciskei, the villages and valleys of KwaZulu-Natal’s interior?
I am sure we could find some unemployed historians or surveyors who would be happy to start work compiling our own Domesday Book.
Last Laugh
Frikkie arrived at work bleary eyed and tired and one of his colleagues asked what the matter was.
“I hardly slept at all last night,” he said. “I was helping my little boy with his arithmetic homework.” “Was it very difficult?” “No it was quite easy, but one of the questions asked: ‘If you had 12 cents and you spent four of them, how much would you have left?’” “Well that shouldn’t be too hard.” “No, I got the answer okay, but then I lay awake all night trying to figure out what the hell you could buy for four cents.”