Vergelegen Heritage : Homestead  

Majestically guarding the front entrance to the homestead are five magnificent Chinese camphor trees planted by W A van der Stel between 1700 and 1706.

They are the oldest living, officially documented trees on the subcontinent and were declared a National Monument in 1942.



The trees are a symbol of the generations whose care and aesthetic passion has nurtured Vergelegen into the estate it is today.



Since 1992 the homestead has been open to public view, allowing visitors to escape into the past, through the grand items of furniture, and elegant interiors.

The homestead has undergone many changes since its first owner Willem Adriaan van der Stel originally built it. The apparent ostentation of the house and size of the estate incurred the wrath of the Free Burghers. When Willem Adriaan was recalled to Holland in 1708 the estate, by declaration of the Council of Seventeen, was to be restored to the company and the 'large dwelling house' to be demolished. Only one-third of the eastern section of the homestead is thought to have been broken down.

The property was to pass through several owners until bought by the Theunissen family with whom it passed from father to son from 1798 until 1899. However, with its transference to Samuel Kerr in 1901 the estate, and the homestead in particular, entered a period of sad decline. The modernisation he carried out on the house came close to vandalisation.

Vergelegen was to regain its former splendour with the arrival at Vergelegen of Lady Florence Phillips and her husband, Sir Lionel. A patron of the arts, a lady of great style and impeccable taste she set about restoring the old homestead, which at that stage was described as 'almost an uninhabitable ruin.'

Upon the death of Lady Phillips in 1940 the estate passed once more into caring hands when in early 1941 it was purchased by Charles 'Punch' Barlow.

After purchasing the estate in October 1987 Anglo American Farms extensively refurbished the homestead with carefully selected treasures of early Cape Furniture, objets and textiles to provide a layered historicism of the 300 years of Vergelegen's existence.