Preserving memories
A DELIGHTFUL surprise, from a reader, Carol Furlonger, was this snippet, posted for us on the 1820 Settler page on Facebook.
“I came across a photograph of my grandparents, James and Helen Deacon with my father in about 1926 taken at the Lagoon in Port Alfred. The old ‘Castle’ can be seen in the background.”
The “castle” as we know, was first named as Cock’s Castle, although I doubt he, William Cock, actually did that himself.
In many of the stories of the building, there was a titbit about the village of Richmond in England. The castle, now vastly altered by the current owners, no longer bears any resemblance to the turreted building of old. Now known as Richmond House, it has more of a Cape Dutch appearance. The “lagoon” mentioned in the clip above, is the area that was used for swimming, more or less where the first island of the marina is situated.
History is created, then recreated, by generations. That is why we of the region need to embrace the relics, take care of them, and store the history very carefully for our children.
Once again, the fun part of photographs like this is to see what we can identify of the now.