Cock’s Steam Mill on the west bank of the Kowie
This excerpt from Cock Tales on the Kowie (2020) by Sue Gordon fills in some of the background of the Old Mill.
We know that in anticipation of an improved port, William Cock bought up land west of the Kowie, hoping to create a separate township.
Cock has been lauded for having ‘brought the Industrial Revolution to the Eastern Cape ’— no doubt an indirect reference to the steampowered mill he built in 1849 on the west bank of the Kowie River.
This square, three-storey building with a grinding mill powered by a stationary steam engine (rather than a waterwheel) must have been a big attraction on the west bank.
The construction on Erf 352 was known as Cock’s Mill, East Coast Steam Mill or the Kowie Steam Mill.
It included ‘Mary’s Wharf’ for ships offloading or loading up grain or flour and a well which can still be found behind today’s Ferryman Hotel, provided fresh water.
Cock (then aged 34, who some say designed and built the mill), retired from his other activities elsewhere in the Cape to run the mill as WF Cock & Company.
By July 1850, the mill was ready to grind corn and did so successfully for many years, offering ‘American’ flour, bran, seed oats and wheat through the 1850s.
By 1857, a baker had been employed to work at the mill.
From 1889 to 1916, the owners were Peter Pote (who had also acquired Richmond House in 1876), Duncan & James McLaren (1904) and Douglas James Smith (1915).
By 1911, the mill had become an empty shell, stripped of its floors and ceilings. Mrs Iris Holloway and her sister Sheila Wilson recall playing there in 1914 on the ladders and beams with their brother Henry Vroom.
The mill was then sold to Edwin Jake Adcock in 1916. The mill cottage, Erf 355, which had been built around 1906 next to the mill was sold by Adcock to Rupert Smith in 1924. Smith and family lived in the mill cottage and ran a general dealers’ shop on the ground floor of the mill from 1924 to 1933.
Walter Henry Vroom was the next owner (1933). He let the ground floor of the mill to Maurice Leventhal, who continued the general dealer business until the war in 1940.
Vroom let the cottage to various tenants, including Prof F Armstrong, retired principal of the school of art at Rhodes University College.
During World War 2, the mill served as an annex to Cove Mansions Hotel (today’s Ferryman’s).
Vroom converted the mill into two family-sized flats. Further alterations were made during the 1940s to make the structure a comfortable dwelling for Walter’s son Henry James Vroom and family.
Vroom’s sister Rebecca lived on the top floor until his death in 1964, when the mill was bought by Doris Howes, a descendant of the Damant 1820 settler after whom Port Alfred’s first senior citizen home was named.
She sold it in 1969 to George Thord-Gray. His widow, Jean continued to live on the top floor of the mill until 1985, when she sold the property to the EW Rohrs Trust.
The McDonalds bought it in 1987 and by 1996 had lovingly restored both the mill and cottage. They took great care to preserve original elements, such as the steam boiler and the original roof beams.
The property changed hands once more in 2001, when the Greyling family bought it. They too have displayed the heritage of the site to best advantage and have undertaken renovations (such as replacing the jetty as well as some bathroom and kitchen fittings). The original features still remaining are the walls, beams and boilers.
Pictures and text from: Cock Tales on the Kowie’ (2020) by Sue Gordon. Unfortunately copies are not currently available: “It sold out two years ago,” Gordon told Talk of the Town. “A reprint is likely, but not anytime soon.”