Vergelegen Wine Estate Owner Samuel Kerr Dies

Samuel Kerr,an Irishman, wastheowner of the Vergelegen Wine Estate, Somerset West from 1901-1917. He acquired the estate on 29 March 1901 at a price of £11,404. He was also the owner of sixsurrounding properties since 1899 before acquiring Vergelegen. His wife and eight children lived with him in the Old Homestead at the estate. The Kerr family used to host several parties and picnics at the estate and enjoyed the outdoors. They also spent time renovating the homestead.

These renovations were attempts at modernizing the estate. When mining magnate Sir Lioneland his wife art enthusiast LadyFlorence Phillips took over the estate in 1917, they set out to restore the house after afamily friend, Dorothea Fairbridge, alluded to the idea that the Kerr renovations were not appropriate. The Kerr’s time at the estate is often characterized as a period of sad decline and vandalism due to the changes they made to the estate. On 25 of April 1905, Samuel Kerr died and was buried at the estate. He is the only owner of the estate to have been buried there. A while after his death, the Kerr family left the estate. His grave is found close to the burial site of a slave named Flora, whose remains were discovered and unearthed in October 1990 after excavations at the estate took place. Her remains were tested and it indicated that she was a slave woman in her fifties from a tropical region. Her reburial took place on 6 April 1991 at Vergelegen Wine Estate.