My late father-in -law, Peter Hubert told me that the house pictured above was called ‘Amajoda’ and it was where his grandparents-in law, George and Helen Mitchell lived when they moved to what is now Sauerstown, in Bulawayo. The photograph of this house has always intrigued me, to such an extent that I have written a series of novels centralized around it. It wasn’t just the house that inspired me to write my books, but also all the things we still have from that house… diaries, brass vases and jugs, camping equipment,furniture and much more. All this inspired me, but the characters and stories are to a great extent made up by me.
In my novels, I have called my house ‘Sunrising’, a name I took from what was the Anglo American guesthouse in Bulawayo. I’ve always thought Sunrising to be an excellent name for a house, but what do you think…Sunrising or Amajoda?
While I’ve been making up stories about the people living in this house, first in the 1900s, and then in the 1950s and then in the 2000s, I’ve often wondered where it was and what ever happened to it.
Well recently I happened to go with my husband to see the mechanic who had fixed his tractor. This mechanic has his workshop on a property in Sauerstown, and while they were talking about the tractor I asked if I could go and look around. There are lots of buildings of all shapes and sizes scattered about this property…some are workshops and offices, some are empty, and one has a family living in it. Anyway, the biggest building is empty, and quite derelict, but I could see that it must’ve been an impressive house in it’s day, and I decided to take some photos of it with my phone.
After supper that night I took down our old photograph of the great-grandparents home and looked at it relation to the photos on my phone and after counting steps and comparing gables and air vents it suddenly dawned on me that it is the same house. My husband didn’t believe me, so I went back the next day with my camera, as well as the old photo, to take some more, looking more carefully at similar details,like where the chimneys are, etc. The mechanics certainly found it fascinating, when I showed them the old photo.
I have been to this property before on tractor business, but I had never, ever considered that it was the same house, mainly because the house in the old photo has a verandah, while the present day one does not. But, on closer inspection, I realized that the verandah has fallen down. Also, initially the house in the old photo looks L shaped, but in fact when you see the buildings in real life, there is a large main house with another building right next to it.
I was extremely excited by my discovery. It gives me goose bumps, even now, when I think about it. Of course I had to do some research, to make sure my assumptions were correct. The details are a little sketchy, and I would be most grateful if anyone could give me further details, or even correct me if I have got anything wrong.
It appears that Lobengula allowed Europeans to live on the land where Amajoda was built, from 1888 when he moved his kraal from Old Bulawayo to the Umhlabatini Hill where State House now is. This land was known as White Man’s Camp. A small stream separates the two properties, and he may have liked having the Europeans there so he could keep an eye on them. There were up to a dozen Europeans living at White Man’s Camp, and one of them was a man named James Fairburn, who built a substantial residence out of brick, which he named ‘New Valhalla.’ I can’t quite work out if this was Amajoda, or if the house was built a few years later, but whatever, it is amazing that a brick house was built at any time around then, when you consider that everything, except the bricks which would have been fired there, had to be brought up by ox wagon. Most houses were pole and dagga huts, with the odd corrugated iron rondaval. Another man living at White Man’s Camp, James Dawson, also built a brick house, and used this place as a store, known as Dawson’s Store. Among others who lived there were the Reverend James Smith Moffat, and there is mention of a Mrs Lippet, who boasted of having a ‘water closet’. In 1893, trouble started brewing after the Rudd Concession was signed, and the Europeans began trickling away. In the end there were just two Europeans left, James Fairburn and W Usher. Lobengula kept them at White Man’s Camp as hostages, while he sent P D Crewe to Cape Town to put forward his case against the Chartered Company and the British Goverment. Apparently these two men were well treated while Lobengula held them captive. In the mean time, Jameson led a campaign to take over Bulawayo and to free the captives, and after two months of fighting,as they trekked from Salisbury to Bulawayo, Lobengula set his Kraal alight, alight and fled northwards on the 3rd November 1893. When the forces, comprising 652 Europeans, and about the same number or Africans, came into White Man’s Camp on the evening of the 4th November they found Fairburn and Usher sitting on the roof of Dawson’s store playing poker. The forces pinned a flag to a tree next to the house. Over the next weeks they spread themselves southwards from White Man’s Camp, up to what is now Athlone Cemetery, and the houses became the hospital for all the wounded. In June 1894 most people moved 2 miles southwards to what is now the centre of Bulawayo. During the uprising in 1896 the brick houses at White Man’s Camp were once again briefly occupied by the rebels. Sometime after that The Bulawayo Market and Office Company, of which Dr Hans Sauer was one of the agents, took over Amajoda. Sauer moved into the house and proclaimed himself the most comfortably housed man in the country at that time.
George Mitchell arrived in Rhodesia in 1895 to open the first bank in Bulawayo, and he and Sauer became partners in the early 1900s, with the Mitchells moving into Amajoda in 1903. All four of their children were born in the house, although the first two died in infancy. I’ve been wondering since if they are buried in the grounds. George Mitchell and Hans Sauer bought our family farm, Spring Grange together. At first there was nothing there so they built themselves pole and dagga huts to stay in when they went out there, but started building their farm house soon afterwards. George Mitchell bought out Hans Sauer’s share and the Mitchells moved to Spring Grange for good around 1910.
Amajoda was renamed ‘The Grange’ (nothing to do with our farm’s name, I don’t think) in 1911 when it was bought by Mrs H T Longden. In later years it became a hotel.
When I went back to take more photos I looked carefully at the trees. To the left of the old photo there is a tree which is still there today. I believe this is the tree where the flag was pinned. To the right of the old photo is another tree, and this tree is also still there today. I tried to show both of them in my photos. The two tall palm trees were planted by Helen Mitchell from the pips of some dates they had eaten.
The wooden poles from the original veranda were replaced at some stage by cement poles, but most of these have since fallen down and broken.I was interested that the house called Amajoda, and the building next to it, the original store, were so close together. There is just a narrow passage dividing them. Maybe they did this for security reasons? When the Mitchells lived in the house the building that had been Dawson’s Store was used as a laundry and tack rooms.
History, any history is always intriguing, and especially when you can piece it together and try to imagine the lives the people lead during that time.
