Garden Route Unearthed

Combine delicious pancakes with a fascinating history.

Bryan and I decided one beautiful, clear autumn day that we would take a trip out to George and drive the Montagu Pass to Herold’s Winery. With the blue skies and good weather forecast, we knew the views from the pass would be spectacular.

Sadly, what we did not know was that the Montagu Pass is closed as a result of the heavy rains that fell in 2022. The road damage is apparently too bad for cars to pass and work is being carried out to fix the road. Currently (autumn / winter in 2023) you can only travel along Montagu Pass on bicycle.

We only discovered this once we had started driving the pass and had reached The Old Toll House where a large road sign announced “Road Closed”.

So, we had to make a new plan for the day and decided to do so over a cup of coffee at the Old Toll House. We parked the car and headed in to the old building.

We had never visited the Old Toll House before, so we didn’t really know what to expect.

Upon entering we were greeted by a building full of old memorabilia covering every inch of the entire perimeter of the room.

There were old pictures, a variety of clothes from a bygone era (including. a wedding dress), old kitchen scales and various grinders and flour mills, about four or five different musical organs, a gramophone and a plethora of things we were not 100% sure what they would have been used for. I didn’t know where to look. It was fascinating.

Then, in the middle of the room, were two huge dining tables and two people drinking coffee and eating pancakes. It was quite a surreal image.

As we looked around, we heard a voice and saw there was another gentleman at the far end of the room standing beside a two-ring gas hob. He greeted us, welcomed us to the Old Toll House and asked if we would like coffee and pancakes.

After seeing that the other visitors were licking their lips and smiling, we decided coffee and pancakes sounded like a wonderful idea.

Whilst we were tucking into our pancakes, this gentleman asked if we would like to hear the history of the Old Toll House.

We readily agreed that we would love to hear all about this wonderful building and so the story began.

The Montagu Pass was built between 1844 and 1847 to provide quicker access for farmers traveling from the Little Karoo and Langkloof to George.

A toll was charged to farmers, transporters and postal carts for animals, carts and wagons traveling along the pass. The charge was one penny per wheel and one penny per animal (depending on its size).

In 1847 the Toll House was built to provide accommodation for the toll keeper and his family. It was constructed out of indigenous sandstone and had a thatched roof, however, the roof was totally destroyed by a fire on the 23rd July 1855, so was replaced by corrugated iron.

The Old Toll House and the Montagu Pass were both declared National Monuments in 1972, but despite this, The Old Toll House sadly received very little attention and was blighted with theft and vandalism over the years.

Devastatingly, on the 29th October 2018, the Old Toll House was destroyed by a wildfire, but there were no plans to restore the building until a non-profit organisation, called Friends of the Toll House, was set up to restore this beautiful, historic building to it’s former glory and with the help of the community, it has successfully done so.

The Friends of the Toll House, continue to oversee the upkeep of the building and one of their initiatives is to offer coffee and pancakes, daily. There is no charge for this, just. a request for a small donation.

I would encourage everyone to go and visit the Old Toll House, listen to the incredible story of this building’s life, whilst enjoying coffee and pancakes at the dining room table.

I also encourage you to be generous with your donation, as it all goes to helping keep this fabulous building and history alive. We throughly enjoyed our visit and enjoyed wandering around the grounds outside too. The views are simply spectacular and the building has been restored magnificently.

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