Preserving
and promoting the Huguenot history and heritage
The
Huguenot Museum in Franschhoek
.
The theme of the
Huguenot Museum in Franschhoek
is the history of the Huguenots before and after their arrival at the
Cape
of Good Hope.
The
museum is the rebuilt Saasveld building,
the elegant 18-th century home of Baron Willem Ferdinand van
Reede van
Oudtshoorn. He erected it around 1791 on his estate (next the
the present
Kloof
Street in Cape Town). All indications are that the architect
was the
Frenchman
Louis Michel Thibault, and that the
decorations on the
building were done by the well known sculptor Anton Anreith.
In
1954 the Dutch Reformed congregation
in Cape Town decided to demolish the building and to erect a youth
hostel
in its place. Attempts to prevent the demolition were unsuccessful. It
was then proposed to erect the building elsewhere. In 1957 it was
agreed
to rebuild Saasveld in Franschhoek (some 70 km
away), next door
to the Huguenot Monument, and use it as a Huguenot Museum. Each brick
was
numbered, and after transporting it 70 km to Franschhoek, was replaced
in its original position. The museum was officially opened on March
11th, 1967.
Entrance foyer of the
Huguenot Memorial Museum
The
museum contains a large variety of
furniture, bibles, silwer ware, kitchen utensils, documents, relics and
artefacts which strikingly illustrate the life of the Huguenots at the
Cape of Good Hope.
Left: Bibles which belonged
to the Le Roux and De Villiers families.
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