• RHODES COTTAGE MUSEUM, Muizenberg, Cape Town, South Africa, the story of the cottage where Cecil John Rhodes spent his last days

RHODES COTTAGE MUSEUM, Muizenberg, Cape Town, South Africa, the story of the cottage where Cecil John Rhodes spent his last days

: Westby-Nunn (T.)

R 385.00
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276pp., b/w & colour illus., paperback, Tony Westby-Nunn, Cape Town, 2026

ISBN: 9781049237060

 

Cecil John Rhodes died in a small cottage on Muizenberg Main Road overlooking False Bay in 1902 at the age of 48. This book is full of anecdotes resulting from Tony Westby-Nunn’s long association with the cottage, which is now a museum and a provincial heritage site.  

Rhodes bought Barkly cottage in Muizenberg in 1899 as part of the Rust en Vrede estate. When the Anglo-Boer War broke out in 1899 he halted the building programme. After his death the land was bought by Abe Bailey who commissioned Rhodes' architect, Herbert Baker, to complete the Rust en Vrede homestead. In 1904 he instructed Baker to carry out alteration plans to the cottage to honour a promise Baker had made to Rhodes on his death-bed.

Tony Westby-Nunn was curator at the Rhodes Cottage Museum for many years. He is the author of several books on South African history, including Hout Bay, an illustrated historical profile; Graaff-Reinet, an illustrated historical guide to the town including Aberdeen and Nieu-Bethesda, and Aberdeen of the Cape, a retreat of the future.