Forest Hall
Owner –William Henry Newdigate
Built 1864
Architect – Built to the owners own Design
Declared a National Monument in 1992
Compiled and written by Rodney Grosskopff
Willam Henry Newdigate
The Story of Forest Hall and, indeed, that of Plettenberg Bay starts with the story of William Henry Newdigate, descended from an ancient and noble English family dating back to the 12th century. He was the third son of Francis Newdigate and Lady Barbara Maria, daughter of the third Earl of Dartmouth. He was born in May 1824 at Astley Castle, his maternal grandfather’s seat.
The Pattern of his life, in some respects, followed that of most noble families in England. The First son Inherited the Title/properties, The second son joined the church or politics, and the third son joined the army, in his case, the navy, and he hated it. He had set his heart on being a farmer and gained some experience on the Family estates. His cousin Henry Barrington (The Honorable Henry Fredrick Francis Adair Barrington, 8th surviving son of Viscount Barrington. Rector of Sedgefield, Canon of Durham Cathedral.) had bought an estate of 2800 hectares near Knysna in the Cape Colony, which he called Portland Manor and invited him to visit, which he did and within 10 months, at the age of 23, he bought 1500 hectares of the farm Roodefontein in the lush green Piesang river Valley, Plettenberg Bay from Hendrick Lodewyk Peo for £600. The money, in all probability, came from his Family in England. He renamed Part of the Property Redbourn and two other sections, Ladywood and Buccleuch. In time, he acquired Astley and Jackal’s Kraal. There, he farmed industriously for 16 years.
From the day he arrived, he set about making Plettenberg Bay his home. He, more than anyone else, set about developing it into everything he cherished in England.
He became a leading member of the community, he recruited fellow English people to join him, craftsmen, traders, farmers and teachers. He tried to build a new England around himself. One of his first projects was the building of a church and schoolroom for his family and dependents. He petitioned his father to help raise the funds; being only 23 years old and impatient, he built the little church of St Andrews with his funds and labour before the £1000 raised by his father arrived, which he then placed in the care of Bishop Robert Gray. He found himself a wife from the local aristocracy. He married Caroline, eldest daughter of Captain Thomas Henry Duthie and his wife, Caroline (born Rex) of Belvidere, in his newly completed Saint Andrews Church. The took up residence in the substantial house which he built for his bride on Redbourn, the first six of his and Caroline’s large family were born – three sons and three daughters – and thrived happily.
In 1862, William’s father died in Kent, and it was probably a result of the bequest he received that William bought in the following year 1 620 well-wooded hectares at Bowers Park – now known as The Craggs. Here, he built a spacious home of his own design and called it Forest Hall.
In a letter written by Caroline Newdigate in August 1863, she mentions that the brickwork of their new house was progressing well and that they would probably move in before the end of 1863.
Bishop Gray visited Plettenberg Bay in 1863 and was pressed into building the little wooden church at St Peter’s, and he could not leave without seeing his old friend. So He and his wife Sophy went to spend a few days with William and his family at the grand new country seat, ‘Forest Hall ‘and afterwards recorded that the house was in the last part of his diocese and almost inaccessible.
On Sunday morning, the bishop celebrated Holy Communion in the large dining room with forty people, quite extraordinary if you consider that there were only 95 people living in the newly opened district and that it was quite a distance away. William had met Bishop Gray and his wife at the Keurbooms River with fresh horses to enable them to complete their journey from Plettenberg Bay. I am sure the congregation and friends were as intrigued to see the new Manor house! As they were to attend the Eucharist.
The wily old Bishop took the opportunity to persuade William to set aside some of his ground in Kurland to allow the local Coloured folk to set up a village of their own and build a new church.
And so! The story of St Michaels and all Angels began when William Henry set aside ground for a church and a graveyard as well as ground for the village, which is still there.
Here they lived a self-contained life, modelled on that of a squire and his lady in the English countryside, He created an English manor house the equal of Astley Castle, Arbury Hall and Harefield Place. He wanted to bring to Forest Hall the elegance of their society and behaviour. Georgina Bain, daughter of Thomas Bain, visited it and described her stay as follows.
‘After a tiring trek up Slate Hill, we reached Forest Hall just at dusk on a rainy evening. Dear old Mr Newdigate received us kindly. Here, I romance in the place. Entering the huge hall door, we were brought before a weird sight. Every conceivable wild animal that abounds in the district was here represented. The spoils of the chase, tastefully arranged around the walls, argued the work of woman’s hands. Tiger skins, elephant tusks, the heads and horns of the Buffalo,, blesbok and wildebeest, the grim head of the wild boar, of a huge snake with a full row of fangs found their place interspersed with native arms of Bushmen and Hottentots. (This was in 1883, a few years before William died.)
After the usual pleasantries we were taken to our rooms to change for Dinner. The large entrance hall impressed me with its broad staircase leading to a gallery above, out of which led the bedroom corridors.
The Newdigate entertained Bishops and other dignitaries of the Church, important men such as Dr Guyon Atherstone and Thomas Bain (of mountain passes fame), officials of the Forestry and Roads Departments and visitors from overseas. Three of William’s brothers came out to stay with them at various times – the eldest, who became Lt Colonel Francis William Newdigate of the Coldstream Guards; a younger brother who became Lt General Sir Edward Newdigate, Governor of the Bermudas after a distinguished military career, and the youngest surviving brother, Albert, a graduate of Christ Church, Oxford. The names of all these and many more are to be found in the Forest Hall visitors’ book, still in use today.
Having changed into evening dress, a rigid custom for both men and women, we descended into the long double drawing room. Then we went arm in arm, in procession into the dining room where the table was lighted by candles in silver candelabras and adorned with beautiful China. Our tiring journey had sharpened our appetites, and we appreciated a haunch of venison excellently cooked and served. On the walls of the dining room and drawing room hung very interesting portraits of the Newdigate ancestors.
“As coffee was being taken in the drawing room, there was a fluttering sound in a corner and a beautiful silver moth which had just emerged from its chrysalis and flew around the room. It was nearly six inches from wingtip to wing-tip and was coloured a soft pinky beige tint marked with lovely shiny spots and flashes of silver. Caroline explained to me that they brought the old logs which house the cocoons from the forest and preserved the moths,” which had been identified it as the extremely rare Leto Venus moth. They began sending them to museums around the world and to collectors at 5/- each and sent a pair to A Mr Rothschild of 148 Piccadilly London for 15/-.
Williams’s two oldest daughters, Caroline Barbara and Constance Marion, fell in love with the project proposed by Bishop Robert Gray and were determined to see the new Church built. They nagged their Uncle Sir Frances to send them plans and devoted the money from the sale of their moths to help bring it to fruition.
Whereas William loved being a farmer, he was never very good at it. He kept his farms in the Piesang valley after he moved to Forest Hall, which put them under further strain. Friends doubted the wisdom of setting up a home so far out of town.
Few even questioned it, his cousin Henry Barrington, said he was moving away from civilization, William replied that he was taking Civilization with him.
Bishop Gray stated that it was in the’ last part’ of his Dioses.
Nevertheless, the Newdigate’s played host to many of the pioneers of the day, and the Estate, with its rolling lawns, croquet games, music and dances, finest China and family silver, was an ‘island of gentility’ in the middle of the dense Tsitsikamma – home to leopards, baboons, and herds of elephant, bushbuck, and water buffalo. While the women- corseted and with parasols to keep off the African sun – ‘took their tea’ and the children chased butterflies, the men formed hunting parties and went on fishing expeditions. Forest Hall was an ‘English Gentleman’s Estate’, a haven of civilization.
Five years after it was built, the Great Fire of 1869 broke out, possibly the most devastating and terrifying event of the times. It swept through the fynbos and forest between the sea and the mountains with extraordinary ferocity, burning almost the entire area from what is now Humansdorp (near Port Elizabeth) through to Mossel Bay. The loss of habitat and life was absolute.
As the Newdigate family, their servants, and others who had fled there from the surrounding communities huddled in the house, fortunately for them, by divine inspiration or just plain good luck, William had made a fairly good cut back on the forest and burned a judicious fire break. Under a black sky choked with ash, their desperate prayers seemed answered. For hundreds of miles around, nothing had been spared, but a sudden change in wind direction and a dense fog that rolled up the cliffs from the sea turned the flames, alone in the area. Forest Hall and the fortunate people cowering inside survived to begin anew.
However, Williams farms were set back on its heels and found it difficult to function profitability. He had to harvest what was left of his vast timber holdings, made less competitive by the distance of transport.
When William died in 1881 the family took out a bond on the property to pay off loans to non-resident family. But they seem to have been beset by court cases but soldiered on for a while. The sons left home to make a living .
That glorious and stately chapter of Forest Hall’s past sadly came to a close in the early 1930s. Though the house was still in the Newdigate family, it was left vacant after William and Caroline’s three spinster daughters moved to be closer to the town of Plettenberg Bay in their later years. Other family had long before moved on or passed away. The house fell into a long, slow decay, and over the years, the home that was once so vital and alive became an empty shell; like all old homes to suffer such a fate, it became a ‘ghost house’, the source of chilling stories and legends amongst locals.
It was left with caretakers but gradually deteriorated. It was leased by a Dr Sym in 1946 who agreed to repair the place. Again, another legal wrangle and more money was lost. The house was abandoned.
I started to visit Plettenberg Bay in the middle to late 1970’s , at the invitation of Don and Heather Ribbons, old Plett people and friends of long standing.
We visited Forest Hall with them. It was still abandoned there were cows in the house the Children ran around playing hide and seek in the empty house. We listened to Don’s Aunts, Jo and Bibby tell storeys of ‘Old Plett” braaing away with not a soul around. Eiry but nice.
We heard that the house was being slowly and painstakingly restored, first by tenants who lived there for many years, then by Hilary Peter, the great-granddaughter of William and Caroline Newdigate. At first, in a sporadic way, taking time off from their Cheveral Arab Stud farm in Komga, she would leave her husband Ken and, with some of her domestic workers, would come down for a week or so to scrub and clean and bring some order to the grounds. After her husband died and her children matured, she came more often. She started restoring the dignity of the home by bringing in suitable Victorian furniture and adorning it with the love it deserved.
In 1989, Helen Mathee’s book Circles in the Forest was filmed there, and the producers contributed to its restoration.
Hilary hired a chef, Lucette, and they ran a unique dining experience, and we attended on a few occasions. The arrangement was quite simple: the first group (larger than 6 )to place a reservation chose a menu, and any others wanting to eat on that night or weekend lunches had to have the same. Or pick another night. There was a maximum of about 18. Functions up to 60 persons.
One often saw her shopping in the local supermarket for a meal.
Later, she geared it up into a guest house and subsequently sold it to Marius van Biljon, who died in a tractor accident.
It was then sold to Michael Johnson, who undertook further restoration. He has spent a lot of money on the project and, from what I had seen, had done a good job even though it was not what one could regard as a classical restoration.
“The house and the grounds today are somewhat more than just reminiscent of its aristocratic origin, but instead of ghosts, there is new life and a deep sense of permanence. Forest Hall is fitted with the finest in modern amenities, but the essential character of this beautiful monument to South African history has not changed – even as everything around it does.
In recognition of this value and its now irreplaceable structure, Forest Hall was declared a National Monument by the South African Heritage authority in 1992.”