Welcome to Macmillan's castle
It’s one of those old houses where you wish the walls were filled with pictures of those who once lived in it. Macmillan’s castle, close to Fourteen Falls in Thika is one of those.
John Thomas Musembi, the administration manager of Muka Mukuu farmer’s cooperative whose offices are housed in part of the castle, is giving us the spiel on the house.
“This office is where Macmillan’s kitchen was,” he begins his narration of the 32-roomed castle that has seen the likes of Ewart Grogan, Theodore Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Evelyn Baring and Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta who became the commander of the Italian forces in what was known as the East African campaign when Italy declared war on the United Kingdom and France on 10 June 1940 during the Second World War.
Diverging a little from colonial times, Musembi tells us about Muka Mukuu.
“This means the first wife in Kamba language. She was the powerful one and well respected for she chose the younger wives for her husband.”
“In 1968, the co-operative bought land from the Macmillan family to plant coffee and sisal.”
"However, the cooperative fell on bad times because of mismanagement where the officials took off with the bounty found in the castle including the gates at the entrance,” says Musembi.
The single storied, high-ceiling castle was built in the early 1900s by Macmillan with bunkers underground.
“The idea to arrest Kenyatta was mooted in this room,” narrates Musembi. It’s one of the bedrooms that overlooks the Ol Donyo Sabuk hills.
The rooms are empty save for dusty scraps of furniture and files. Nothing of Macmillan is here, not even a discarded photo - but the house was gazetted on 19th December 2008 and plans are underway to turn it into a museum.
Macmillan or Lord William Northrop Macmillan was born in 1872 in the US. According to Musembi, he was a self-made millionaire and a decorated soldier and even though he was not Scotsman, he was knighted by the King of England.
That does not surprise me for reaching the other end of the house through the enormous living room that faced the beloved mountain where he is buried with his wife, servant and dog, the man played a huge role in helping keep the protectorate under the British regime otherwise why would he have built a castle on top of bunkers running the entire length of the house.
Musembi lifts the lid off the floor to reveal a wooden ladder leading to the underground where secret meetings were held. It’s dark and full of debris and the tiny hovel reminds me of the slave bunkers in Zanzibar. Musembi points to Sir Evelyn Baring’s bunker.
He was the governor of Kenya from 1952 to 1959 during the Mau Mau uprising. He imposed the death penalty for anyone administering the Mau Mau oath.
“The late Tom Mboya was born on Macmillan’s sisal estate,” continues Musembi telling us about one of Kenya’s first fire-band politicians who fell to an assassins bullet in 1969 at the young age of 39.
Macmillan was a massive man, seven feet tall and had to turn sideways to walk through a door. The couple never had children. On the death of her husband in 1925, Lady Macmillan built the Macmillan Memorial Library in the centre of Nairobi for the white community, opened in 1931.
That was during the days of segregation. Today, Macmillan Library though still imposing and always full of readers, is quite a mess from the inside with dusty shelves and poorly kept books.
Researching about the library, I’m surprised to learn that it has Richard Minsky’s work. He was a critically acclaimed artist whose innovative use of materials for book arts for over 30 years has made his work collector’s items worth millions.
Examples of Minsky’s work are held in major museum and library collections worldwide, including The Getty Research Library, Los Angeles, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, as well as the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the McMillan Library, Nairobi. He still lectures actively to promote book art for education.
Macmillan’s castle was, like Grogan’s and Delamere’s castles, a scene for scandals, affairs and wife-swapping parties. It was nicknamed Kilavu for club house by the locals.
It was here that American President Roosevelt lost his presidency when he accompanied Macmillan to Grogan’s house in Chiromo and on the way, ruffled some feathers of the Indian community – the press picked up the story and Roosevelt was shown the door.
Macmillan’s abode was also the site for Hollywood blockbusters like the 1950’s Mogambo starring Ava Gardener, Grace Kelly and Clark Gable.
Today, the estate which covered over 100,000 acres is privately owned and some of it subdivided into 2 to 3 acres plots for the co operative members.
Macmillan and his wife lie on Ol Donyo Sabuk above the flat plains and if things work out according to the will he left, they may be shifting the bodies to the summit even if it’s more than eight decades later.
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