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Oliver the Spy. Oliver had got into trouble with the English cops for fraud, and had
been enlisted to spy on agitators but as the workers weren’t agitating, he ended up

persuading them to agitate, then reported this to the police. He was hastily sent out of
the country by the House of Commons when things got too hot for him. He arrived with

a letter recommending him as a builder - which he was not. Somerset refused to see him

when he arrived because he was too busy fighting with Sir Rufane Donkin who had
threatened to whip Somerset’s arrogant son Henry. When Somerset simmered down, he

employed Oliver to alter the Round House and his Marine House in Camps Bay.
Somerset wrote it off as unavoidable repairs. Oliver also built an upstairs onto

Somerset’s official home, Newlands House. This collapsed in the first Newlands rains.
Then there were unavoidable repairs.

Oliver rethatched the roof of Somerset’s seaside house. While he was about it, he
installed floors and ceilings of stinkwood as well as five fireplaces of Robben Island

stone and one of marble. He added two bathrooms and gave all the sea-facing rooms

French windows - the first in the Cape. A veranda ran on three sides of the main wing
and Venetian louvred shutters protected the rooms from the heat of the afternoon sun.

Outside was slate paving.

There were no Home and Garden magazines in those days, but every artist who was
anybody rushed to paint a picture and I have put several in the book. (Fig. 5.3) When

Somerset got into trouble with the Scorpions for misappropriating government money

for these unavoidable repairs, he blamed Oliver for not being open and transparent with
his accounting and fired him. Justice having been seen to have been done, Somerset

promptly created a new post as Inspector of Government Buildings and appointed
Oliver.

When Somerset returned to England under a cloud, the British Government put his

house up for sale to recoup some of the money outlaid. The only way to see Somerset’s

stately home is to buy the book because it was demolished in 1920 to make way for a
bowling-green. The outhouses became another bowling green. A building dating back to