Avondrust (Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 6)

· on record 1926 · show on the map

The farm's own history, the grant, the original survey, sits on that page.

Farm number: No. 169
Portion: 6
District: Prince Albert
Extent, as the diagram states it: 980 morgen
Modern surveyed area: 876.9 ha

The historic extent and the modern surveyed area are two separate measurements and are not presented here as confirming each other. The first is what a surveyor wrote on a diagram, usually in morgen. The second is what the modern cadastre draws.

Why this farm is here

Ground a written history is set on. 6 km from Klaarstroom.

story A written history is set on this ground Middelwater's story since 1777
parcel Cut out of Middelwater

Stories

about this farm Middelwater's story since 1777
From a loan farm on the Zwartberg to eight cadastral parcels: the full documented history of Middelwater No. 169 - Stretch's 1833 survey for Okert Oosthuizen, the twelve-farm grant day of 1841, the 1883 resurvey and the 1884 quitrent to J.D.J. Oosthuysen 'and another', the portions cut off for a spring called Vaste Water and a place called Avondrust, and the 1990 power-line survey whose coordinates finally put the farm on a map.

Before this ground was cut out

This is the history of Middelwater, the farm this ground was part of until 1926. It is shown here because this ground was that farm, and separately from what follows because before the cut the record says the farm's name and not which part of it. Not everything below necessarily happened on this piece.

1777/1860 boundary subdivision: from De Claar Stroom (the 1777 loan farm)
1777/1860 boundary subdivision: becomes Middelwater
1777/1860 boundary same_as: becomes De Claar Stroom (Klaarstroom No. 178)
1777 event De Claar Stroom loan farm granted parent farm of Middelwater and Klaarstroom This is PAR-000097, Klaarstroom No. 178. The loan farm itself is PAR-000004.
1821~ to 188X ownership Cornelis Andries Oosthuizen (1792-06-14–1860) occupation · confidence medium
1821~ residence Cornelis Andries Oosthuizen (1792-06-14–1860) farming
1822 ownership Jan Louis Venter (1754–1824), Johanna Jacomina Smit (1760–1824) loan farm · occupation · confidence high
1822 residence Jan Louis Venter (1754–1824) tax roll
1833 boundary consolidation: becomes Drooge Kloof
1833-08 document SG diagram 349/1833 Bf.W.Q.5-7
1833 to 1841-04-15 ownership Ockert Almero Oosthuizen (1786-04-24–1859-02-26) loan farm · occupation · confidence high
1836-11-27 residence Ockert Almero Oosthuizen (1836-11-27–1922-01-02) birth/farming
1836 residence Susanna Catharina Oosthuizen (b.1819) (1819-05-31–1856-09-24) farming
1841-04-15 ownership owner not named in the record Perpetual Quitrent · grant · confidence medium
1850~ residence Cornelis Andries Oosthuizen (b.1828) (1828–1871-04-24) farming
1860-02-18 residence Johanna Machteld Petronella Strydom (1792-01-05–1860-02-18) farming · to 1860-02-18
1865 event The 1865 drought: watering the Middelwater orange grove from vats So dry that Jan Adriaan Oosthuizen, then living on Middelwater (PAR-000001), watered the orange grove before the house with wagon and vats so the trees would not die; the only water left stood in the heights toward Kouwveldt at the steep drift. His grandson's diary carries it, from his son's telling - the only picture of daily life on Middelwater in the 1860s this record holds.
1865~ residence Johannes Adriaan Oosthuizen (1816-11-20–1882-08-11) memoir
1883 boundary subdivision: becomes Klein Vlei (Middelwater portion)
1883-10 document SG diagram 1364/1883 P.A.Q.3-3
1883 document SG diagram verso 1364/1883 (verso)
1884-03-24 ownership Jacobus Daniel Johannes Oosthuizen (1823-09-02–1903-06-11), Oosthuysen co-owner (unidentified) quitrent · grant · confidence high
1923 boundary subdivision: becomes Vaste Water (Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 5)
1926 boundary subdivision: becomes Avondrust (Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 6)
19XX boundary subdivision: becomes Rietfontein
undated boundary remainder: becomes Moreson (Middelwater No. 169 Remainder)
undated boundary subdivision: becomes Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 1
undated boundary subdivision: becomes Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 2
undated boundary subdivision: becomes Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 3
undated boundary subdivision: becomes Ebeneser (Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 4)
undated boundary subdivision: becomes Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 7
undated boundary subdivision: becomes Remainder (Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 2)

What the record holds, in order

1926 boundary change subdivision: from Middelwater

Also bordered by, as the modern cadastre draws it

Ground that touches this farm on the Surveyor-General's current polygons and that none of the diagrams held here names. Derived from the geometry, not read off a document.

Cadastre

Surveyor-General diagram index for this parcel

Surveyor-General diagram index for the whole farm, where the original survey of this ground sits.

Research notes

Cut from Middelwater; SG Dgm A.4804/1926; portion 6 of farm 169. [CORRECTED 29 Jul 2026, verification pass] DOC-0039 (the 1883 diagram's verso deduction table) reads "A.4804/1926, Avondrust 169/6, 980 [morgen], 30/5/1927 - 5200": deed is 5200 of 30 May 1927; the earlier "deed 26 Jan 1926" was a misread of the SG file reference A.4804/1926. "Gedeelte 6" on the 1989 servitude map (DOC-0040) agrees. Named on the 1883 diagram as an internal landmark. [30 Jul 2026] Matched to cadastre 6/169 on the portion number, which DOC-0039's verso and DOC-0040 both give. [5 Aug 2026] THE AREA DISAGREEMENT IS RESOLVED, AND THE COMMON CAUSE WAS THE RIGHT INSTINCT. This note read: the verso's 980 morgen is 839.4 ha against a cadastre parcel of 1052.7 ha, 25% larger, and 'both this and Vaste Water run large in the same direction, which suggests a common cause rather than two transcription slips'. The common cause is GEOM_AREA. 1052.7 ha is this feature's GEOM_AREA/10 000, the cadastre field match_cadastre.py found on 5 Aug 2026 to be inflated by 1/cos(lat) - about 19.7% here - on 429 records. The true polygon is Shape_Area, 876.9 ha, which sg_area_ha now carries. Against that the 980 morgen runs 4.5% high, which is ordinary 1920s survey-vs-modern-resurvey error in this district (median 0.5%, 40 of 75 parcels within 2%). Nothing further to verify. [30 Jul 2026] INDEPENDENTLY CONFIRMED, not on the portion number alone: the Lo23 survey coordinates on DOC-0040, converted from Cape Datum, place servitude beacons B and E against this polygon - and that diagram letters this same ground "Gedeelte 6 (Avondrust)". Method and the full beacon test in SRC-053.

[13 Aug 2026] Renamed to the one form this model uses for every portion - the portion's own name, then the parent farm, its number and the portion in brackets - so that a name is legible in a list, a search result and a map popup without the reader having to know which farm number is which. It read "Avondrust (Middelwater portion)" before. Nothing about the ground changed.

The research behind this page, kept separate from it: dated working notes, open questions, and what is not yet settled.

What the record is missing

Nobody is on record as ever having held this third order · B8 never-held
Avondrust (Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 6) is in the model and drawn on the map, and carries no ownership record of any kind, not a grant, not a transfer, not an occupation.

What would settle it The Surveyor-General's diagram for the farm number names the grantee and the date; the deed reference on it opens the transfer chain.

Found by breaks.py reading the model against itself, not written by hand, each one is a shape of missing record, not a fault in the data. The whole set is on the questions page.