An afternoon spent with Katherine Love is one like no other, it’s a Victorian affair.
Found nestling in Auckland Park, in all its subtle grandeur, is the Lindfield Victorian House Museum, a house completely furnished in Victorian style that she has called home since she was a little girl.
Her mother started the museum 50 years ago, having had collected antiques all her life. Katherine was about 15 years old when she too started collecting antiques and this enabled them to furnish the house in total Victorian style.
On the day the Northcliff Melville Times visited the home, Katherine was dressed as a parlour maid, as she thinks it ties in well when she holds tours of the house.
“People always ask why it is I dress as a maid and not as the lady of the house and that’s because it is impossible to do much else but sit when dressed as lady of the house. The dresses were designed so that a lady could just sit and do her embroidery.” She jokingly added it would be most impractical to host tours in those dresses.
So off we journeyed through this house with its parlour maid as she led through the home that for the past 23 years has been open to the public for tours. The house is authentically furnished as an upper-middle-class home of the late 1800s early 1900s would have been.
Built in 1910, the house was owned by six people before Katherine’s grandmother bought it. Her first family home was expropriated to make way for what was then known as RAU.
Once they got this house, her family worked to restore it back into an old home as the previous owners had tried to modernise it. “When people come to visit the house they get transported back into the past, as a home would have been in those days. People think the house is very full and cluttered but that is exactly how houses were.”
There are lots of pieces that Katherine is fond of but she thinks the dollhouse is one of her most prized possessions as it is a unique piece that she and her mother spent time creating together. The dollhouse is the sort that a little girl in the 1870s would have received on her 10th birthday and when she a was child, Katherine was given the same one. Through the years she has lovingly put a lot of herself into it.
The house is based on a British home. As she described, people came to the country from England, very often being the husband’s idea to immigrate, and as the wives were homesick, they tried to create a bit a of home once they settled here.
In the time it has been open to the public, the house has been met with great public appreciation. She explained that on Tripadvisor this is the only five-star museum in Johannesburg, and for five years running she won their Certificate of Excellence Award which led to her being in their hall of fame.
In 2020 they also gave her the Traveller’s Choice Award which puts her in the top 10% in attractions worldwide. “Even with this I am not getting enough people and struggle to keep the place going especially since the lockdow. Before that I was getting a lot of overseas visitors and now that’s just about dried up as I get the occasional tourist coming these days.”
Her biggest worry is sustaining the museum as for her, there is no organisation that would be capable of maintaining it as she thinks this country is hopeless in running museums. Though there have been some international prospects she has considered.
The museum is open for tours on appointment only.
Details: Lindfield Victorian House Museum 011 726 2932 or 071 920 4726.
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