Historical SASTA Field Day:
Kearsney Manor and Glendale Valley
If history is your thing, the SASTA field day held on 13 October would have been right up your alley. SASTA members enjoyed a morning of memories, as we visited Kearsney Manor, Sir Liege Hulett’s family home and the original abode of Kearsney College from 1921. After Sir Liege, a founding member of Tongaat-Hulett, and his family moved away, and the Kearsney schoolboys moved to the school’s current premises in Botha’s Hill in 1939, the beautiful manor was used as a hospice house before lying empty for a number of years, becoming run down and dilapidated. Erica and Paul Kalil purchased the manor in 2004 and began a beautiful renovation. This enormous manor, now a guest house and wedding / functions venue, embodies old-school romance on a grand scale, and is very well worth a weekend visit. Members enjoyed a tour through the house and listened to the far-off echoes of a wistful history, as part of a central chapter of our sugar industry.
Lay historian Gavin Wiseman also led the group through a fascinating history of the Glendale Valley and sugar mill. A trip down into the Umvoti River valley was like entering a different world, and the harsh struggle of early life in the valley became apparent as the steep road and baking heat drew us into its past. The mill, originally owned by the Reynolds family in Shakaskraal, was brought down into the valley by oxwagon in 1880. In the early days, all movement of people, machinery, cane and sugar was by oxen or horses, and delivery of the mill’s sugar to Shakaskraal was a four-day round trip by oxen! The was reduced to two days when a road was built from Glendale to Stanger (now KwaDukuza). Local growers of all races supplied good-quality cane to the mill, especially after the establishment of a number of irrigation schemes in the area in the 1970s and 80s. The mill changed hands a few times, with longer-term owners being the Paruk family, then the Lonrho Sugar Corporation, and finally Illovo Sugar. Illovo purchased the mill in 1997, at which stage the mill closed and only the ethanol distillery remained; the distillery was eventually decommissioned in 2024. Growers still produce cane in the valley, some making use of those irrigation schemes still running in the area; cane is sent to Gledhow mill for processing.
The current hardships faced by our sugar industry seemed just a little less overwhelming when one considered the trials faced by the early growers and millers at Glendale, including the rinderpest (which killed off many of their oxen), the struggles of the Bambatha rebellion, life in a steep, hot valley without a road to the nearest town, and the toll taken by both World Wars. On the foundation of the heritage left by such indomitable, resilient founders, our industry will surely thrive again in the future!
SASTA is most grateful to Gavin Wiseman for sharing his knowledge; and to Jade Kalil of Kearsney Manor, and Edgar Bruggemann and Mervin Karsim from Illovo, for welcoming us onto their premises.
