The Clouds of War (5 of 10)

User Rating: / 1
PoorBest 

THE CLOUDS OF WAR!

Since starting these series of articles for the Gariep Times I have received a great deal of mail concerning the history of the Glasgow Pont ferry boats and I read from them that there exists some confusion about the relationship between the bridges and the pont operations. Some visitors who have read Sir George Cory’s History of the Cape have even enquired about where the “pontoon” can be seen and asked if it is still running! Hopefully, I have now cleared up that particular matter in the April edition, and that a few lines about the bridges’ history will make everything clear too:

The actual dating of the bridging of the Orange can be easily done from the way the Cape Government Railways refer to both line and village actually as “Norval’s Pont Bridge”. This name came into being when a temporary bridge was built using a small cocopan railway to deliver building material from where Dapperfontein Farm’s rail-side centre pivot stands to day, to the Glasgow Pont that had been contracted by the CGR to assist with the construction. This first bridge was made much lower than the structure we see today and was designed for the purposes of delivering material for the construction of the Free State Railway from the northern bank during the period 1889 to 1890. This means that locomotives and their trains crossed “unofficially” and outside the CGR’s timetable during that time and therefore precise dates are unknown.  This bridge was deemed unfit for further use after sustaining some fairly severe flood damage at the end of November 1890 and left to fall apart by itself due to the new bridge being almost ready for service. When viewed from the Waschbank angling site, ie the downstream side, low-water reveals a series of concrete blocks that the darters stand on to dry their wings after a spot of fishing. These are almost certainly the foundations of the now long-gone low bridge.  A further reminder of this original construction is a remaining cocopan truck that is now displayed outside the Glasgow Pont Hotel.

The very first “official” train crossing is recorded as being on the 17^th of December when the “new” higher bridge (that’s the one we drive across in our cars today) was opened and the line inaugurated as “The Norval’s Pont Bridge – Bloemfontein Line”. (Incidentally, this was at the time the longest railway bridge in Africa – something for you trivia buffs as a bonus!) Most references after 1900 refer to the village and station as “norvalspont”, a style to which local government has erroneously adhered ever since. The present railway bridge was erected in 1904 and the upstream bridge strengthened and revamped for road vehicles that no longer had the use of the last Glasgow Pont. If you care to stop and read the various maker’s plates on the girder sections of both bridges all of this becomes clear. What also becomes apparent is that the bridge sections were all made in “kit form” in Britain and shipped out like so much meccano. The dynamiting of the first higher railway bridge by the Burgher Forces of Gen. De Villiers, covered in more detail a little later in this series, was also made largely ineffective for the same reason: the British forces merely had to hoist the blown out sections back into place, pop in a few new bolts and the railway was once again operational in fairly short order.

Interestingly, it was a “local boy” who set himself against the bridge and the progress the railway service represented: Born just a few score miles away in Bulhoek in the Steynsburg district, old “Oom Paul” Kruger went nose to nose with Cape Governor Sir Harry Loch in a verbal scrap that went on for some time before finally agreeing to a settlement with the British and the CGR that the bridge at Norval’s Pont could be built.

Handy for him that he had, though. Susan Helena Norval, wife of James Norval - the then operator of the Glasgow Pont - records how Kruger’s first action of the Great Anglo Boer War was to send his forces over that self same bridge on October 11, 1899 to annex Norvals’ Pont Bridge as a new part of the Free State and to invade the Cape Colony and take Colesberg. She writes how the Burgher army was exceptionally well prepared having brought with them many planks of wood that they laid over the railway track to enable their ammunition and supply wagon convoy to quickly roll freely across the bridge and onto British soil.

Next Time: Mrs Norval hides her linen from Koos Delarey!

Article courtesy of Rod Mann, Owner of the 'Pont, 2005 - 2010