The Stellenbosch Village Museum is a block of four restored town houses in the old centre, furnished to four different periods between 1709 and 1850 and linked by their gardens. Guides in period dress work the rooms. It is run by Stellenbosch Museum, which also operates the Toy Museum and the VOC Kruithuis nearby, and it is open six days a week plus Sunday afternoons.
Most house museums show you one moment. The Village Museum shows you four, in four adjoining houses, and the interest is in what changes between them. Schreuderhuis, the earliest, is a small early-eighteenth-century dwelling with a beaten floor. By the last of the four the rooms have grown, the furniture has become formal and the household has money. Walking from one to the next takes a few minutes and covers about 140 years of how people in this town actually lived. Guides in period dress are on hand in the rooms, and the gardens between the houses are part of the route. It is the single most useful stop for understanding the streets outside.Highlights
- Four adjoining town houses furnished to four periods between 1709 and 1850
- Schreuderhuis, the earliest house, with its beaten floor and early eighteenth-century rooms
- Guides in period dress working the rooms, with linked gardens between the houses
