Oh, so pretty
Chock-a-block with national monuments and top-notch wine estates, the cul-de-sac mountain village of Tulbagh is a true gem of the Cape, says NICK DALL. Thanks in no small part to a 1969 earthquake…
‘ If
it weren’t for the earthquake,’ says historian Jayson Augustyn-Clark, referring to the 1969 event which measured 6,3 on the Richter scale and claimed seven lives, ‘I wouldn’t be here.’ The quake devastated Tulbagh but it’s also the reason that Church Street is ‘one of the prettiest streets in the whole of South Africa’.
Stroll its 675-metre length on a quiet spring afternoon, gables gleaming in the sunlight and oak leaves fluttering in the breeze – stopping every so often to explore the coffee shops, museums and art galleries along the way – and you’ll understand what he’s talking about.
Church Street, which had become scruffy in the years leading up to the disaster, was knocked sideways by the quake – but it wasn’t the only area affected. Faced with scores of crumbling cottages, battered barns and shattered steeples across a swathe of the Boland, authorities – once they’d dealt with people’s most urgent needs – very swiftly (the following day!) turned their attention to preserving some of the architectural heritage that had been shattered, explains Jayson (he wrote his 250-page master’s thesis on the topic).
A team led by South African restorers Gawie and Gwen Fagan decided to focus their limited resources largely on one street and a handful of historic farm houses in the Tulbagh Valley. The project was one of the Fagans’ first (Gawie’s dad was a Tulbagh lad who went on to become the Chief Justice of SA; his gravestone lies in the cemetery) and it remains among their most significant.
‘Homeowners were given a choice,’ says Jayson as we stop to admire the handsome gable that tops his Cape Dutch Quarters hotel at 24 Church Street. ‘They could either sell their home to the Tulbagh Restoration Committee at a market-related
price, or allow the Fagans to undertake a full and faithful restoration at no cost.’ The 30 residents were split exactly down the middle in their response to the offer, ‘but the guys who chose total restoration were the ones who really scored’. Property prices skyrocketed once the Fagans had worked their magic.
Employing an architectural theory known as ‘to best’, the Fagans created a seismic event of their own. They ripped away modern facades and Victorian broekie lace and peeled away plaster to reveal the original seed of each house. In many cases this meant restoring the house to its Cape Dutch origins, but because the street was developed over several centuries, they were also able to preserve several Victorian and Edwardian gems and at least one neoclassical Georgian home that wouldn’t be out of place in London or Paris. The Oude Kerk, one of the oldest original church buildings in the country, now houses a museum.
At no point in its history did Church Street look like it does now, reveals Jayson. ‘It’s a fabrication … but I’m not complaining.’
With 28 national monuments, Church Street is Tulbagh’s dazzling centrepiece, but it is by no means its only attraction. Neighbouring Van der Stel Street (the ‘main drag’) has its fair share of gems too (The Tulbagh hotel is wonderfully atmospheric) and it’s got a much busier feel, especially on Fridays and Saturdays when queues snake from every ATM and the town’s Spar takes on a carnival atmosphere. This end-of-week frenzy is a reminder that – ever since its establishment more than three centuries ago – Tulbagh has depended on farmers and their workforce from the surrounding valley for its survival. ‘It was established by the Dutch East India Company as a place for farmers to pay taxes and attend church,’ says Jason. ‘In that order.’
Tulbagh is still something of an agricultural backwater, but this only adds to its charm. The town’s significance was decimated in 1822 when the Drostdy was relocated to Worcester, and things went from bad to worse when Bainskloof Pass opened, effectively cutting Tulbagh off the Cape trade toute to the African interior.
Jayson, who has friends on farms throughout the region, had a hard time whittling his list of recommendations down to something even remotely doable for my wife and I, with two toddlers in tow. But eventually he sends us to explore the Twee Jonge Gezellen road, which winds its way north towards the dramatic, jagged confluence of the Obiqua and Winterhoek mountains.
Before we’ve even got into fourth gear we’re greeted by the doll’s-house charm of Montpellier’s tiny wedding chapel floating atop a sea of vineyards, but this is just the beginning of the wonders.
Watched over by an ever-present rim of craggy peaks, we pass the artsy sophistication of Saronsberg and the magnificent 1710 werf at Twee Jonge Gezellen. Then the road narrows and – getting higher now – the vineyards are replaced by fruit trees, horses and finally the groves of the delightfully secluded Oakhurst Olives on Lemoendrif farm.
To show off the valley’s bounty, Jayson and his husband Marcel invite us to dinner in their gorgeously cluttered Victorian home at 25 Church Street. While our exhausted girls watch Disney musicals, we enjoy a meal that’s 100 per cent Tulbagh: the scrumptious (and enormous) free-range chicken comes from Eikelaan; the veggies from the Church Street Kitchen Gardens; the beer from Buchanan’s Brewery and the wines from several local estates. Even dessert is local. The Amarula truffles from Moniki Chocolatier have to be eaten to be believed…