Establishment Local interest in the creation of a museum for the town resulted in the founding of the “Caledon Museumvereniging” (Caledon Museum Association) on 5 May 1970. Committees were formed for fund raising and item collecting, and a
constitution was adopted. The management committee of the Association consulted with
Dr Mary Cook, at that time the curator of the
Drostdy Museum in
Swellendam. She advised that they concentrate their collecting efforts on the
Victorian era, as no other museum in the area was focused on that period, and it coincided with a time of growth and development in the Caledon region. The building later became a
maternity home, and was used as such until the new hospital was completed with a maternity wing in 1970. The house depicts the late Victorian period 1870-1900. In restoring the house all the inside woodwork, windows, ceilings and doors were wood grained, some of the floors had to be replaced, and the walls of all the rooms except the kitchen, pantry and the exhibition room were wallpapered. The wallpapers were researched typical of that time, samples of wallpapers were found in a house in Mill Street. From old photographs and plans, research was done on other old buildings of the same era in Caledon. Information in the interior was resourced from the books of the writer Dr Con de Villiers and the descriptions of his family home on the farm Dunghye Park in the Caledon district. The Caledon family of Hoffman and the De Kock family (who lived in the house) were also helpful with information. During restoration an underground stream had to be piped and diverted away from the house. The kitchen, back passage and pantry were restored and a woodstove was installed in the kitchen. Local builders were used in the restoration of the house and Johan Burger of Museum Services at Ruyterwacht restored all the furniture. ==Current Sites==