The two people who loved Matjiesfontein the most are no longer there, but their legacy remains, a baton of custodianship having been passed to a young team who understand the ethos of this eccentric relic of an era many no longer want.If anything screams “colonial” it is Matjiesfontein, with its Victorian architecture and street lamps. It’s a living museum piece, yet new life has been breathed into it to ensure it retains a place in a new present.Before the late hotelier David Rawdon died in 2010, he asked his friend Liz McGrath, dowager matriarch of the Liz McGrath Collection of fine hotels, to keep an eye on the place and its traditions. McGrath negotiated a management contract to run the Lord Milner — in fact the whole of Matjiesfontein Village, all of which is a part of the hotel complex.My association with Matjiesfontein is deep and I found myself interviewing both Rawdon and, more recently, McGrath, not long before their deaths. The last time I met McGrath, she arrived in the ...
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