19 Feb 2014

Department of National Museum and Monuments intends to develop the Bonnington farm into an open air museum, says the director,  Gaogakwe Phorano.

Phorano said this during a press conference in Gaborone on Monday, February 17 and stated that the move was in support of “adopt a monument programme” that was launched in 2008.

Adopt a monument programme he said, was part of the department’s commitment to the development of heritage sites.

Bonnington farm he said would have a botanical garden and a park which would cover the entire area from the Western bypass to the Grand Palm and from the Molepolole road to the northern peripheries of the block five residential houses.

The programme came about as a result of the realisation of the rate at which heritage sites are getting destroyed through natural degradation and vandalism, he said.

A farm house, he said, would be restored through the Ipelegeng 100 monuments programme. The department, he said, was currently in partnership with Gaborone City Council, and a consultant has been assigned to do an environmental management plan prior to the development. Since the history of the museum has to be known,

Phorano said that they are in contact with several people who used to work at the Bonnington farm during the 1940’s and 50’s and are in a position to tell the story of the farm

Their research, he said, took them to Carolyn Slaughter and her sister Angela Heslop who were children of a Bechuanaland protectorate District Commissioner between 1952 and 1958.

Slaughter said they were part of the colonial history of Botswana as they were the District Commissioner’s daughters when the country was still a protectorate.

During their time in Gaborone, she said, they spent a lot of time at Bonnington farm in an L-shaped farm house, designed to reflect the initial owners’ surname, LeCordeur.

Dan le Corduer ran the farm from around 1944. ENDS