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Smethwick, very funny....

First prize for the North Staffords for the best kept Blockhouse was watching the first innings of Lieut. Lyon's cricket innings! Second prize was having to sit through the second innings as well

I also thought the stance of the soldier second from right looked odd but I wrote it off as the NCO who just found his Blockhouse lit up like a Christmas Tree in the dark African bushveldt.....just like the North Star guiding the Boers right for him

I was interested to see what effect the Blockhouse System had on the war.

Going through "Commando" by Deneys Reitz he makes numerous references to them; it looks as if the Blockhouses did have an effect and in his last chapter he attributes this, along with other factors, to bringing the war to an end.

The following excerpts are courtesy of "Commando" by Reitz:

Chapter 16 - From West to East

“This crossing of the railway proved a relatively simple matter, but later on in the war, when the English had completed their blockhouse system, it became increasingly difficult; and from all accounts it required something like a pitched battle to negotiate a passage over the Transvaal and Free State lines, though in the Cape Colony I saw none of this.”

Chapter 18 - The next stage

“The night was so freezing that to lie unconscious on the ground meant certain death, but Field-Cornet Botha said it was essential to cross the block-house line before it drew light, and, as we were still a long way from the point at which he intended to slip over, he insisted upon our pushing on, so we continued our journey, some-what heartlessly I admit, but we could not afford to lose the chance of getting through under the guidance of men who knew the lie of the block-houses.”

“After three days of steady progress we were back on the open plains, within sight of the Bloemfontein-Johannesburg railway line, and we scouted round for a suitable crossing. This was becoming more and more difficult to find, now that the English were perfecting their block-house system.”

“There were working parties of soldiers dotted along the railway track, engaged in putting up these block-houses, but we had no difficulty in galloping across the metals, despite a fairly heavy rifle-fire, and, having safely negotiated the line, we rode on, passing not far north of Brand-fort village. Towards dark we came on a field of maize into which we turned our weary horses, and here we spent the night.”

Chapter 19 - Farther south

“After an hour's ride we reached the railway line at what we took to be the point which we had selected, but the night was so dark that we had gone astray, and we ran into a block-house instead. We were met with the usual 'Halt! Who comes there?' Followed by rifle-shots, so we bore away to look for a more suitable crossing, and some five hundred yards farther down we made another attempt.”

“We hurriedly mounted to rejoin our companions, but our horses began to plunge and flounder over obstructions staked along the ground. In approaching the railway we had somehow or other missed these entanglements, but now we were in the thick of them, and-the tins always attached to them were clanging and jangling, and increasing the terror of our animals. To this din was added a blaze of musketry from a block-house standing only a few yards away, which in the darkness we had mistaken for a mound of rocks.”

"Rifle-fire at point-blank range is unpleasant at the best of times, but when one is on a maddened horse-staggering amid wire loops it is infinitely more so, and had there been even a glimmer of light to guide the soldiers we should both have been shot. It was so dark, however, that they were firing at the sounds, and not at us, and Verster managed to wrench his horse free, but mine was shot and I was nearly pinned underneath him. I undid the buckles of the girth, and dragged my saddle from under the prostrate animal and, stumbling over the rest of the obstructions, we got clear away to where the others stood whistling and shouting to us and anxiously watching, not daring to shoot for fear of killing us. I had left the Shetland pony with them when I went forward to the fence, so I now put my saddle on him, and we galloped off, leaving the soldiers firing blindly into the night. We made a half-moon, until we again reached the railway line, intending to have another try, but as soon as I began to use the file, we heard the sound of men running along the track towards us, so we lost no time in decamping, and abandoned all thought of crossing that night. We spent a cold night behind a kopje, and, when it grew light, we were nearer the English camp at Edenburg than we imagined. We had barely time to get our horses saddled before a hundred or more troopers came racing at us, but, riding fast, we got safely into the hills at Boomplaats, my Shetland pony going surprisingly well.”

“Now things went better, for we were with men who knew the exact position of every block-house and every sentry along the track, and by midnight we were over without a single casualty, although there was a good deal of firing from block-houses on either side of us as we went through.”

Chapter 26 - The lost cause

"I know little of the actual Peace Conference as I was not a delegate, but the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Every representative had the same disastrous tale to tell of starvation, lack of ammunitions horses, and clothing, and of how the great block-house system was strangling their efforts to carry on the war"

In their collection, the National Army Museum, London, has one of the original plans that accompanied the components of a Rice octagonal blockhouse. For anyone who has had trouble figuring out how to assemble a set of IKEA shelves, this "flatpack" would have proved very challenging indeed.

The NAM describes this as a pen and ink drawing on silk; however, I suspect it is a lithograph, as the absorbent properties of silk would render an ink drawing blotchy and illegible. The blank spaces, left for Captain Rice's signature & the day/month, support this supposition.

This example was used for the construction of a blockhouse at Rietfontein, Pretoria, by 3322 Pioneer Sergeant William Charles Light, 2nd Bn. Lincolnshire Regiment, in May 1901.


....Courtesy of the National Army Museum, London (NAM. 1963-08-121)


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Hi Neville,

I can only imagine how many Allen keys those poor blokes had left over after assembling those Flatpacks

The brochure below makes it look so simple:

1. Filling in the walls with Shingle



2. Ramming down the Shingle



3. Lifting on the Roof (This is where the Teamwork makes the Dreamwork)



I also thought you would like this...more washing on the line....and quite the trench system....definitely do not want to get "half-cut" (tipsy) and make my way through that elaborate spiders web of entanglement.



Can you imagine an officer inspecting the blockhouse to find a number of Her Majestys finest caught up in their own devices!

Sturgy, not my words.......



but those of two members of the History Dept, Uni of OFS in 1999.

This link takes you to their article which you can download as a PDF foc:

journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/AJA10113053_363

Construction kits, bundled and ready for despatch.

It seems that this photograph was taken at the manufactory at Middelburg, as there are way too many components for one build, especially considering the two structures in the background are close to completion.

Is it possible that the two blockhouses in the picture were built as experimental or demonstration pieces? This could explain why they have been placed so close to one another, in what has all the appearances of a builder's yard..




Major Rice's company, then at Middelburg in the Transvaal, soon became an extremely well-organised blockhouse factory, the construction of each separate part being in the hands of the same men.
Every part was made to template, and, consequently, these blockhouses all fitted well together, which was far from being the case with those made by contract at the coast” (Professional Papers of the Corps of Royal Engineers, Vol. XXX, 1904).



Another photograph, this time depicting the mass production of curved corrugated iron sheets for Rice blockhouses.



“All the sheets had to be curved, in a machine costing about £60 to £70; it was probably from watching the manufacture of the cylindrical corrugated iron water tanks with one of these machines that Major Rice got the idea of the circular blockhouse” (Professional Papers of the Corps of Royal Engineers, Vol. XXX, 1904).



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