EASTFORD NEWSLETTER
Spiral Park Embracing Growth and History
WRITTEN BY CLARE | 00-00-0000
PRIVATE NATUR RESERVE
After the devastating fires of 2017, a number of us decided to build a park, here in
Eastford Vale, to revitalise a blackened piece of land and to provide an area for
people to meet and for children to play. As we regenerated the area we decided to
remember the 25 houses which had been lost and a spiral was developed, flat on the
lawn, built from the bricks sourced from all the houses that had been burnt.
The spiral followed the principles of the Fibonnacci Sequence which is a perfect
mathematical concept resulting in the Golden Mean. I love to imagine myself
standing on the starting point watching it grow exponentially to include the park, then
the surrounding houses, followed by the whole of our estate, then Knysna and on to
include all the surrounding land
This monthly letter will be written from the Spiral park and will, hopefully, include
news of the flora and fauna, pictures, a bit of history and the people living here. We
hope you will enjoy it and indeed, give some feedback.
I firmly believe that without knowledge of what happened before we can’t begin to
understand the present or in fact ourselves. And so I decided to see if I could do some research into the past of our estates.
It was these rocks that did it .On our stone-free piece of land we started digging a
garden and out came these interesting rocks. Surely these were from a time gone by?
Surely their shapes turned them into digging tools or cutting implements? They are
formed for easy gripping when you places your fingers down one side so yes, they
must have been hewn.
And so I went to Google. The Stone Age era was a broad one lasting from 6000BC to
2000BC which meant we can have no way of knowing exactly when these early
people lived on our estate. There must have been water, there must have been some
shelter and I wonder what animals roamed our hills to provide sustenance for them.
Many other dwellers followed and again, digging in our garden we came across
artefacts of a different kind. We unearthed jars, tins, old crockery, broken glass and
even coins. Bertie Greeff told me that once, near the park where the lone pine stands,
he counted eight dwellings, some in this area and some down near to the gate. Our
estate belonged to his dad before he sold this land off to the developers and Eastford
was then created.
I shall continue with our history on forthcoming web sites but in the meanwhile,
where do we find ourselves today? Eastford has been changing daily with new builds
and new people buying up houses and empty properties. It is a popular estate as our
committee work tirelessly at keeping us safe, maintaining roads and infrastructure
and upholding correct standards of building. Five years on from the fire, the gardens,
verges and public areas are beautiful and we are excited to be seeing an increasing
number of animals returning to live with us.
Hope you enjoyed these insights and I am looking forward to meeting many
newcomers and including something of them on this site,
Cheers,
Clare
