Museum eatery to change offensive name
Patrons will no longer be able to enjoy a meal at The Whipping Post at the Drostdy Museum in Swellendam.
|||Cape Town - Patrons will no longer be able to enjoy a meal at The Whipping Post at the Drostdy Museum in Swellendam. A decision has been made to change the name after complaints that it was offensive.
The restaurant was named after the whipping post in the jail yard, where slave prisoners were once flogged. The new name has not yet been revealed.
However, the Board of the Drostdy Museum is still facing charges for illegal building work at the museum.
Dr Errol Myburgh, interim chief executive of Heritage Western Cape, confirmed on Friday that formal charges had been laid against the board. The illegal work included cementing priceless mud floors, using screw-in bolts to fix a Bedouin tent to a 270-year-old wall, and building a pizza oven under a thatched roof in the historic “Old Gaol” area.
Myburgh said Heritage Western Cape had issued a stop works order to the Board of the Drostdy Museum for unauthorised work undertaken on a Provincial Heritage Site without a permit.
A meeting last month of the Built Environment and Landscapes Committee had agreed that a compulsory repair order be issued to compel the museum board to repair the damage to the property.
Matthys Koch, chairman of the board of trustees at Drostdy Museum, said it was difficult to understand why Heritage Western Cape would go to such extreme measures.
“We haven’t demolished or defaced anything and we were under the impression processes had been followed.”
Koch said the board had told Heritage Western Cape it was willing to work with it to do the restoration work.
“But we can’t even take it (the tent) down because we have been instructed to find an architect who is approved by Heritage Western Cape and only then apply before the end of February to do rectifications.”
He said it was quite interesting that Heritage Western Cape had suddenly “woken up”. “People went ahead recently and demolished a house in Swellendam that must be 130-years old, leaving a heap of rubble, and yet they did nothing.”
Koch added that the board had a good track record and last year had been awarded the best Museum in the Western Cape at a gala ceremony hosted by the Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport.
He said it attracted thousands of local and international tourists to Swellendam, where tourism was a major source of employment.
The museum receives a subsidy from the government, but it isn’t enough to maintain the six-hectare complex, he said.
“We need to do our own funding for maintenance because the government won’t pay. And when the old and new can’t co-exist it is the old that will die,” Koch said.
“But we can’t tell Heritage Western Cape what to do,” he added.
He confirmed a decision was taken on Wednesday to change the name of the restaurant.
“The owners have undertaken to change it. I’m not sure what the new name will be, but I’m sure it will be something neutral.”
helen.bamford@inl.co.za
Cape Argus
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