Eerste Pastorie Winburg

When Van Velden arrived, the house was not complete; he and his family had to live for eight months in the church's backroom.

They lived in the Eerste Pastorie from mid 1851 to February 1854, during which time they recorded the first two births in the house, a daughter and a son.

In 1894, Jacobus Johannes Tier Marquard took up residence in the Pastorie with his wife Margaret and his three children, Maria, John and Andrew.

[3] Marquard had joined the commandos as a “padre” and was captured at the surrender of Golden Gate in July 1900 and sent to a POW camp in the Cape.

Therein she details daily life from baking “biskuit for the commandos” in the kitchen hearth (still in use today), to the expropriation of first the horses, then the carriage and finally the house by the British.

[4] The town was divided, as was South Africa, over the issue to support either the British or the German Empire in the First World War.

Unfortunately the house was broken into whilst unoccupied and the ornate chandelier and door to the dining room was stolen.

The outside carriage house is now a narrower than standard double garage, the original stable still contains the five animal tie up manger.

The three older houses in Bethulie, Philipolis and Winburg have not been lived in for years and survive as parts of museums.