Some barn, some leather

摘要

Some people get all the luck. The phone rings and someone says: "You remember the gilt leather frieze in the Drawing Room? Well, we've just come to the end of a large restoration project and there is some money left. To Roy Thomson, the head of the UK's Leather Conservation Centre in Northampton, the call from the curator of one of South Africa's most prestigious buildings was the perfect antidote to a grey winter's day in February this year. In quick time he and two colleagues found themselves flying down to Cape Town to advise on the leathers used in Groote Schuur—the big barn, in Dutch—and to rehang leather panels in the magnificent rooms of the official residence of the president of South Africa. For those with a penchant for quiz games, Groote Schuur would probably be remembered as the giant teaching hospital in Cape Town where the world's first heart transplant took place. In this instance, however, it is also the name of a magnificent, landmark home in typical Dutch architectural style, part of the estate dating back to 1657 when the Cape's first governor Jan van Riebeeck established a granary to store the grain of the Dutch East India Company.