MIND THE MANOR
LOCATION
Between Clocolan and Ficksburg, in the shadow of the Maluti Mountains on the Lesotho/Free State border.
STYLE
It’s an awe-inspiring, late-Victorian, sandstone mansion recently restored to its former glory. That includes an English country garden, two churches, a soon-tobe-converted vicarage B&B, 1 200ha of livestock farmland, a polo field and a “glampsite” under the overhang of a massive Maluti boulder.
SERVICE
Owners Rick and Sue Melvill certainly know how to entertain. They’ll offer you a welcome drink and give you a tour of the place — which includes the astounding story of the original owners, “the Newberry family and the curse of Clocolan”.
HOW’S THE GRUB?
We had a superb steak-and-egg dinner and a breakfast fry-up, with some great crisp-fried aubergines.
ACTIVITIES
The estate provides plenty of hiking, trail-running and mountain-biking opportunities, and if horses are your thing then speak to Rick about his polo events (or how about bicycle polo?)
There’s a full-size billiards table in the games room upstairs. Oh, and if you’re in the mood for some under-the-stars cinematic entertainment, ask Rick to screen your favourite movie on the rock face at the back of the house, reportedly created after a lightning strike in the 1950s.
FACILITIES
The downstairs rooms have lavish en suite bathrooms that incorporate boulders from the actual mountains. The upstairs rooms are also suitably spacious and there’s a deck of open-air beds for either the kids or the romantic. In the glamping area, the loos and showers have a gobsmacking view and there’s also a luxurious deck and bar and an open-air bath house right under the mountain. The open-air bathhouse, where steaming water is pumped from a genuine Victorian donkey-boiler installed below the mountain, is not to be missed.
RATES
Prynnsberg sleeps 16 in the Manor House @ R25 000 a night.
CONTACT
E-mail perfecthideaways.co.za or call 021 790 0972.
Smith was a guest of Perfect Hideaways.