Caledon Museum
Caledon Museum, in the town of Caledon, Western Cape, South Africa, is a social history museum displaying and collecting around the themes The Victorian Period in Caledon and The History of People Living in Caledon. It receives financial support from the province of Western Cape.
History
Establishment
Local interest in the creation of a museum for the town resulted in the founding of the “Caledon Museumvereniging” on 5 May 1970. Committees were formed for fund raising and item collecting, and a constitution was adopted.The management committee of the Association consulted with Dr Mary Cook, at that time the curator of the Drostdy Museum in Swellendam. She advised that they concentrate their collecting efforts on the Victorian era, as no other museum in the area was focused on that period, and it coincided with a time of growth and development in the Caledon region. The Museum Association was successful in getting their fledgling museum proclaimed a provincial museum, according to Museum Ordinance 31 of 1968, on 25 July 1972.
11 Krige Street
The house at 11 Krige Street, was built by Rev. Theunissen, when he did not want to live in the rectory that was provided for him. The building later became a maternity home, and was used as such until the new hospital was completed with a maternity wing in 1970. The building was then sold by the Provincial Administration to the Caledon Museum Association, to house the new museum. . The museum displayed its collection, which had been so enthusiastically assembled by the museum committee, in this building until the early 1990s when the museum relocated closer to the historic centre of town.11 Constitution Street
The residential house at 11 Constitution Street, was purchased by the museum in 1991 and was restored by the curator Tizzie Mangiagalli to be used as a house museum.The then director of museums, Mr Brian Wilmot opened the museum on Friday 2 December 1994. The house depicts the late Victorian period 1870-1900. In restoring the house all the inside woodwork, windows, ceilings and doors were wood grained, some of the floors had to be replaced, and the walls of all the rooms except the kitchen, pantry and the exhibition room were wallpapered. The wallpapers were researched typical of that time, samples of wallpapers were found in a house in Mill Street.
From old photographs and plans, research was done on other old buildings of the same era in Caledon. Information in the interior was resourced from the books of the writer Dr Con de Villiers and the descriptions of his family home on the farm Dunghye Park in the Caledon district. The Caledon family of Hoffman and the De Kock family were also helpful with information. During restoration an underground stream had to be piped and diverted away from the house. The kitchen, back passage and pantry were restored and a woodstove was installed in the kitchen. Local builders were used in the restoration of the house and Johan Burger of Museum Services at Ruyterwacht restored all the furniture.