Thursday, January 3, 2008

Where's the Drummond sawmill?

1906
"The foundations of the sawmill which catered for the whole of Drummond and Inchanga. The timber went by chute down to the railway trucks below."

Along the old main road between Durban and Pietermaritzburg, it's very easy to miss this little piece of wall as you enjoy the spectacular view of the valley of a thousand hills on the other side of the road.

This is all that is left of the sawmill. Even the web yielded nothing about something which must have been a thriving industry in the early part of last century.

This whole area is very quiet these days, and makes for a really pleasant drive, or if you're more energetic and up for a 90km run, you could join a few thousand others in the annual Comrades run.

2 comments:

Marie said...

What happened to the sawmill? Why was it destroyed?

CrazyCow said...

I couldn't find anything on the web related to this sawmill, but suspect that it was progress which ended it's usefullness. Kwa-Zulu Natal now has two large companies with forrests all over the province, catering to this industry.

This area is very hilly, and doesn't lend itself to planting an havesting forrests, so it's not altogether surprising it has fallen away.