This evening after supper we went back to the photo of the Land Registration Map again to find the land registry numbers Orie had given us. My hand was over much of the map and the delineated area of Orie Manduli’s farm lay under my finger! I was emphasising where the Gantz farm was. As the photo had been freeze-framed from the video, Colin went back to it to see if there was a frame of the Map. There was – with Sylvia’s finger this time at The Elgon Club. Block 6135 Jack is where the Kama Koia River takes a pronounced bend right, J Anderson is clear north of it on block 6134.
He extracted that frame as a .jpg and saw to the north of it — the name ‘Jack’ under land registry number 6135! To the north of the Jack acreage was the name J. Anderson on acreage no. 6134. The ‘Jack’ land must be Kama Koia Farm because in 1932 Emilie May wrote to her father that part of the acreage had been sold to Anderson. She also wrote that another neighbour was ‘Ratieff, a Dutchman, managing for H.W.Lane of the P.W.D’ — to the south-east is Block 5350 -Lane.
This is amazing. The information had been there all the time under our noses but I was not looking for it. I had assumed that the map had been made post 1938 when the Gantz bought 500 acres of Kama Koia Farm and post 12th January 1939 when my grandparents, my mother, her twin sister Valerie and my aunts Sue and Monica left for England, never to return.
Now I know where KK farm is, but maybe only a part of it. If 6698 was called Kama Koia Farm then it must have been sold by my grandfather as it must be unlikely that there were two farms of that name within five miles of each other. Block 6698 is separated from 6135 by the two Manduli blocks 5368 & 6832 – so presumably one, either or both blocks must also have been part of Kama Koia Farm and become subsequently detached. — If so, KK house site could be where Orie’s current house built in 1946 is.
This is exciting!
I look through granny’s letters to see what she wrote of other neighbours:
1. December 1927 ‘Fred is doing business nearly all the time. He has sold the lower part of our farm KK to one of the Sutherland Bros who are our agents in Mombasa.
2. ‘Colonel & Mrs Tweedie & 2 children bought the other half of the big farm once owned by Gordon Hewett. They bought the house.’ (January 1927) our house will be about 1 1/4 miles or less from theirs (Tweedies). (25/91/1927) ‘… Gordon Hewett (The Tweedies have his house and the lower part of his farm, we have the upper part).’
3. A.D Hartridge (bought a small piece from Tweedie – letter of November 27th, 1926). ‘Beyond the fence divides from a gum plantation and a windbreak from the Machewa Valley, Hartridge and Tisdale.
4. Col Trench, his wife was Miss Fidler of Reading, his farm touches KK at the back.
What a pity, none of them are written in the other blocks around 6135. Maybe people we ask tomorrow, now we know where to resume the search, will remember, after all John did know that Priscilla lived in one of the houses — but I think she may have been more recent than 1926 – 1932. Maybe someone will recognise something from the photos from Aunt Sue and of KK house.
It would really helps to get a fix on the Tweedies farm. Orie has promised to email the title transfer history of her two blocks. Can, and how can, we do a search of the land registry
We need to turn in. Tomorrow will be another long day eating red dust on bumpy roads. Robert is going home and his head driver, Martin, has driven up from Nairobi to take over. Today tested the car, I hope Martin is up to it.