The Diary of Iris Vaughan In June 1903 Cecil Vaughan purchased two erwen in Adelaide to build a house, and a third adjoining erf in 1909. Although the deed of sale only went through in June, the incidence described below probably took place in April or May, just before the Vaughans moved temporarily to Fort Beaufort. It necessitated a trip to Kroomie to negotiate a fair price with the sellers. I have included the extract here, because it gives me a chance to comment on of the farming community of the area. “This week we went to a place in the country in a cart it is called Krommee. It is a hotel belonging to 3 ladies called Weelden. Pop went to buy erfs to build his own house on. We staid all day becose Pop said they were hard nuts to crack. Why nuts. There father was dead. In the yard of this K. hotel is a long house made of glass in its sides. It is full of ferns. In middle is a walk where you stand to look. They grow all over and are beautiful. Six times I went to look. It was like Woods grotto. I wish we could have a fern house like this. The men who live near are called farmers and Nilands. Pop got 3 erfs near the jail. We are going to build a house soon. It will be near the school and Miss Jolly (Miss Dolly).” The Kroomie Hotel (picture 1) was originally called Hazelton’s, after its founder, Mr Henry Robert Hazelton. He established it in 1841 as a coach inn for the many ox, horse and donkey wagons that transported goods between Adelaide and Fort Beaufort. Hazelton seems to have come from Adelaide originally, which would account for him having had land there for sale. As the inn became more and more popular, its name was changed to the Kroomie Hotel. When this visit took place in 1903, Hazelton had died, just as Iris wrote. Mrs Fanny Maria Hazelton and two of her daughters were still managing the Hotel; the name “Weelden” is therefore a pseudonym forced on Iris by her publisher. The Hazelton ladies were driving a hard bargain, by the sounds of things! Fanny lived until 1905 (picture 2; gravestone at the Fort Beaufort Cemetery), and in 1906 the Hotel was put up for sale and purchased by Bob Long, the owner of the Commercial Hotel in Adelaide. The Long family managed both the Hotel and a trading store selling beautiful imported fabrics and other high quality goods successfully for a number of years. The greenhouse or fern house at the Kroomie Hotel was a popular and well-known curiosity; sadly long gone. During the Victorian era there was a wave of fern fever, also referred to as pteridomania, where ferns were believed to cure madness and boost one’s love-life, amongst other things; and the collecting of ferns became a fashionable hobby. Hence a proliferation of ‘Wardian Cases’ within the home (picture 3) and glass fern houses without (picture 4; this is an unrelated picture to show what the Kroomie fern house might have looked like). Iris loved the fern house at Kroomie and likened it to Wood’s Grotto in Grahamstown, which we mentioned in a previous post. Little did she know that at the Residency in Fort Beaufort, to which they would soon to be moving, a smaller version of a fern house would be waiting for her. In this version of The Diary, mention is made of “farmers and Nilands” in the area. In the original ‘Outspan’ version it said “Painters and Nilands”. There were also Pringles in the area; all were large families and all intermarried. We have already mentioned Daisy Painter. Her parents, Walter and Emma Painter, farmed at Yellowwoods (picture 5). We visited the farm in 2010 with Geoff Painter, whose son now farms there (picture 6). It is still a thriving concern. Not, sadly, the Niland lands, and they will be on the menu tomorrow.
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 11:54:38 +0000
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