Spion Kop Battlefields and Three Tree Hill Lodge

Spion Kop Battlefields and
Three Tree Hill Lodge
O
ld footsloggers will tell you there are few things as
dreadful as a forced night march as a precursor to a
first-light attack. Modern infantrymen, however, are
generally spared the horrors of stumbling through the
darkness – generally in enemy territory and rarely in pleasant
conditions – as they fortify themselves for battle.
So it was on the night of January 23 1900, recounts Simon
Blackburn, when 1700 men struggled up the steep southwestern spur of Spion Kop, an imposing hill in what is now
South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province.
The assault group was drawn predominantly from the 2nd
Lancashire Fusiliers, 2nd Royal Lancaster and 1st South
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By JIM FREEMAN
Lancaster Regiments. However, Spion Kop had not been
reconnoitred and the strength and disposition of the Boer
commando and artillery forces ranged against them was
unknown. Crucially, the force carried with it no sandbags
to shore up its static defences and the Royal Engineers
contingent elected to leave its picks behind because they
were too heavy and unwieldy in the night ascent: all they
carried were 20 shovels.
Listening to Blackburn who, with his jutting beard and slouch
hat, could pass for a Boer leader himself, it is all too easy
to picture the disaster that unfolded the following day. The
ground was iron-hard and the men could only huddle in a
shallow shell-scrape as enfilading Boer artillery and sniper fire
ripped into them so that, at the end of the day, 243 lay dead
and a further 1250 had been wounded and captured.
For all the horror of the story – as usual, command and
logistics confusion compounded the tragedy – Spion Kop
is a wondrously calm place. The only sound is Blackburn’s
voice, counterpointed by the guttural cawing of crows
(synonymous with all African and Indian battlefields) and the
whisper of a breeze through the long, dry winter grass.
Many of the men are buried in the trench where they died,
raked by airbursts in a continuous cannon barrage which
correspondent Winston Churchill said was the most brutal
he’d ever experienced, or felled by Mauser fire. It’s a place
of ghosts (68 Boers were killed and 267 wounded) but their
souls seem at peace. There is no malignancy of spirit here
and, in the valley below Spion Kop, a rhino cow browses
contentedly with her two calves.
Just a few miles away, very close to where the British
command post was situated, lies Three Tree Hill Lodge
(http://www.threetreehill.co.za). It’s a small but delightfully
quirky facility owned and run by Blackburn and his wife
Cheryl.
The 16-bed eco-friendly lodge comprises six twin suites and
a two-bedroom family suite which has a master en-suite
bedroom, a children’s room with separate toilet and a small
kitchenette. The buildings are ruggedly colonial and, although
this is mirrored in the offbeat interior decor, there are
luxurious finishing touches: believe me, heated towel-rails are
an absolute necessity in the height of winter.
The lodge is miles off the beaten track, which means that the
silence of the African night is absolute. I kept being disturbed
by a browsing eland (Africa’s largest antelope) that had
taken a great fancy to the aloes that were growing just a few
metres from my bed.
Still, it’s not a bad problem to have. It’s also a treat to wake
with the dawn and hear the veld come alive around you as
you sit on your patio with your first cup of tea of the day.
You can just imagine General Sir Redvers Buller – overall
Commander of the British forces on the day – doing the
same thing while training his naval glasses on distant Spion
Kop – and watching the disaster unfold.
Autumn 2011
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