The Jungle North Trenance Farm Bulawayo

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: Bulawayo, Matabeleland North, Southern Rhodesia
Surnames/tags: Whittaker Schultz

The homestead house and farm in The Jungle (off Jungle Road), North Trenance, Bulawayo, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Jungle Road is off the Victoria Falls road to the North of Bulawayo.

The original parcel of land in North Terrance, near Government House was granted to R.H. Crewe an early settler and mining contractor in Rhodesia by Cecil John Rhodes British South Africa Company in the early 1890's, before the Second Matabele Rebellion in 1896. Both R.H. Crewe and Susannah Theodora Schultz were described as being in the Laager in Bulawayo during the siege of Bulawayo by the Matabele in 1896^[1].

George Henry Whittaker and Susannah Whittaker bought a small parcel of 64 acres and the homestead from R.H. Crewe in the early 1900's (1908?) (Lot nnn, remainder of R.H. Crewe) and Susannah lived there until George Spencer Whittaker and Hilda (Clark) Whittaker returned from England after their marriage in 1926.

Trenance House

Spencer and Hilda bred dogs, German Shepherds (Alsatians) and imported the first Afghan Hounds into Rhodesia and showed both Afghans and the German Shepherds. They built kennels and Hilda started up the business of Thor (Boarding) Kennels on the farm which ran successfully for many years while she was alive.

Trenance House dogs

Spencer ran a small number of dairy cows and farmed tobacco and other mixed crops on the farm over the years.

When their daughter Daphne was divorced in 1963 she and the 2 children (Vaughn and Michelle) came up to Bulawayo from Johannesburg to live with Spencer and Hilda on the farm. Daphne helped out with Thor Kennels and also started a dog grooming business alongside the kennels.

After Spencer died in 1985 the farm was sold to a Dr Rankin, from Mpilo Hospital who rented it to members of the South African National Congress (ANC) military wing Umkhono we Sizwe. On 11 January 1988 a car bomb was detonated alongside the house which killed two people (one being the driver of the car) and injured three others. The bomb caused extensive damage to the house (see pictures).

Trenance House Bombed

Kevin Woods (35 at the time and an ex Northlea School pupil), Michael Smith and Phillip Conjwayo were arrested and sentenced to death by Zimbabwean courts for the attack which was later commuted to life imprisonment. Kevin Woods who was head of the Zimbabwean CIO (Central Intelligence) in Bulawayo, was also a double agent for the South African military intelligence. The trio spent 19 years in jail (in Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison) and were eventually released on humanitarian grounds on 1 Jul 2006. Conjwayo died in 2014.

In 1992 another bomb rocked a second house on the North Trenance property which was originally built by Peter George Whittaker and Shirley Whittaker, and at the time also housed South African ANC members.

Bomb Rocks ANC House