Historical enthusiasts visit famous farm
The location is where Lt Col James Stevenson-Hamilton, founder warden of the Kruger National Park, spent his last years.
WHITE RIVER – Mpumalanga Heritage recently ended its year’s activities with a visit to Gibraltar, with its historic homestead on Lake Longmere.
A Scotsman by birth, he actually planned to move back to the family estate in the Highlands after his tenure of just short of 50 years in the park.
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His yearning to remain close to the African bush made him buy a piece of farmland north of the village of White River some years before Longmere was built.
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The farm was named Gibraltar, after a massive face rock across White River that bordered the grounds before the valley was filled up with water.For years the family divided their time between Scotland and Gibraltar.
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When the old man died, his much younger wife, Hilda, maintained this practice. Today his son, Jamie, who was only 13 when his father bought the land, visits annually.
Over the years the house was turned into a modern and comfortable structure. The farm was changed into a lucrative and productive unit, until recently when most of the land was sold. Only the original farmstead remains on a smaller portion of the original land overlooking the upper reaches of the dam.
Jamie Stevenson-Hamilton and his wife Jennifer, with other members of the family, are currently visiting Gibraltar.
He entertained the visitors with anecdotes about his famous and often unconventional parents,spoke about his own youth living at Skukuza,and answered questions about some of the many relics from the past still preserved in the house.
Jamie and his sister were later shipped off the White River to lodge at Ms Fuller’s School, which later became Uplands.
