History
North Lodge was built in 1905 for Mr Henry S. Wilson, a produce merchant. Unlike his neighbours on the Parktown Ridge, Henry Wilson was not a ‘Randlord’. He was known as the ‘Oats King’ having made his fortune during the Anglo Boer War by importing and supplying horse feed to the British Army. This fodder was imported from Central America and mixed into it were the seeds of blackjack, khakibos and cosmos, the legacy of which lives on in these alien invader species in South Africa.
Henry Wilson did not occupy the house for long before financial losses caused him to sell and move to a farm in the Orange Free State. Thereafter, the house was owned by W.C.Cuthbert, W.P. Taylor and Scott Schreiber Piercy during the years before the First World War.
Piercy who bought the house in 1913 offered a new cricket ball as a prize to any boy who could hit a ball through the window at North Lodge from the nearby Parktown Prep School. The record does not show whether this was ever done, but fortunately, the beautiful stained glass and leaded pane windows within the house survived this challenge.
The house is an exuberant eclectic collection of styles fashionable in the Edwardian era. It has been described as an architectural fantasy reminiscent of a French Chateaux on the Loire or Baronial castle.
