Gumtree is a small village situated between Ficksburg and Clocolan in the Eastern Free State of South Africa. Sixty years ago it was a hive of activity with a Station, a Shop, a Post Office (with it's own telephone exchange), a school and right in the centre, the hub of the village, was the tallest sandstone building in South Africa, the Gumtree Mill.
Farmers from far and wide brought their grain to the mill and had it ground into fine flour and mealie-meal (South Africa's staple food). Farm produce was loaded onto the train to be transported all over the country, and labourers and farmers and their families used the passenger carriages on the train to travel to nearby towns to do their shopping, or to distant cities or destinations on holiday or to visit family or friends.
Then the passenger trains stopped running and the village started to die. Today it stands forlorn and almost empty, many of the buildings wrecked and vandalised. The farms around are as productive as they ever were, but the village lies silent and empty and the Mill stands guard over it all with it's insides stripped and hollow and pigeons nesting and cooing in the rafters. The roof is peppered with little holes which it is rumoured were caused by bored men doing target practice with their guns. The remains of the machinery, which used to turn the giant milling stones, lies tangled and abandoned on the floor of the mill. An occasional goods train may speed through the station but none stop there.
Like Sleeping Beauty's Castle, the Mill and Gumtree wait at the base of the typical Eastern Free State sandstone cliffs to be released from the evil spell, which was cast upon them. Maybe one day the Mill will be rescued and restored to it's former glory, but in the meantime it sits and broods with empty eyes.