The historic stamp mills at Kloofendal are undergoing preservation oiling. The shorter one is believed to be the one bought by the Struben brothers to crush the ore from their Confidence Reef mine. It was built by Sandycroft in the UK in 1884/5 and shipped in pieces to SA by steam/sailing ship. Then it was sent from Durban by train to Estcourt, where Harry Struben met it and transported it on five ox-wagons to the farm Wilgespruit, and into the kloof, now Constantia kloof. It was set up there in three weeks aided by his nephew Godfray Lys and by George Walker, who also helped build a cottage nearby.

It was the only mill on the Witwatersrand in 1886 when George Harrison discovered the main Reef, and was used by many early miners to crush their ore. Around 1888 it was sold to the Bandies mining co. from where it was recovered many years later and displayed on the corner of Goldman and 7th Streets Florida. In 2009 the Friends of Kloofendal moved it and another old mill to the Kloofendal Nature Reserve on the West Rand.

Rod Kruger - Mining Historian