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The Africa House: The True Story of an English Gentleman and His African Dream
In the declining years of the British Empire, in Northern Rhodesia, Stewart Gore-Browne was a proper English gentleman who built himself a sprawling country estate, complete with liveried servants, rose gardens, and lavish dinners finished off with vintage port in the library. All that was missing was a woman to share it with. He adored the beautiful aviatrix Ethel Locke King, but she was almost twenty years his senior, married, and his aunt. Lorna, the only other woman Gore-Brown cared for, was married as well, but years later her orphaned daughter would become Gore-Browne's wife. The story of a colonialist who beat his servants yet supported Rhodesian independence and who was given a chief's burial by the local elders when he died, The Africa House rescues "from oblivion the life story of an astonishing man, an astonishing marriage, and an astonishing house" ( The Spectator ).
432 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
48 people are currently reading
757 people want to read
About the author
Christina Lamb
23books349followersChristina Lamb OBE is one of Britain's leading foreign correspondents. She has been named Foreign Correspondent of the Year five times in the British Press Awards and What the Papers Say Awards and in 2007 was winner of the Prix Bayeux Calvados - one of the world's most prestigious prizes for war correspondents, for her reporting from Afghanistan.
She has won numerous other awards starting with Young Journalist of the Year in the British Press Awards for her coverage of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1988; was part of the News Reporter of the year for BCCI; and won the Foreign Press Association award for reporting on Zimbabwean teachers forced into prostitution, and Amnesty International award for the plight of street children in Rio.
She was named by Grazia magazine as one of their Icons of the Decade and by She magazine as one of Britain's Most Inspirational Women. The ASHA foundation chose her as one of their inspirational women worldwide with her portrait featuring in a special exhibition in the National Portrait Gallery. Her portrait has also been in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. She was awarded the OBE in the 2013.
She has won numerous other awards starting with Young Journalist of the Year in the British Press Awards for her coverage of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1988; was part of the News Reporter of the year for BCCI; and won the Foreign Press Association award for reporting on Zimbabwean teachers forced into prostitution, and Amnesty International award for the plight of street children in Rio.
She was named by Grazia magazine as one of their Icons of the Decade and by She magazine as one of Britain's Most Inspirational Women. The ASHA foundation chose her as one of their inspirational women worldwide with her portrait featuring in a special exhibition in the National Portrait Gallery. Her portrait has also been in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. She was awarded the OBE in the 2013.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews
May 4, 2013
A friend sent me this book for the simple reason that the house where I live in France is called Maison Africa.
When I saw the cover that stated "The True Story of an English Gentleman and His African Dream", I wondered if the book would come up to my expectations. Well it did indeed.
When Stewart Gore-Browne reached Lake Shiwa Ngandu (known locally by the Bemba people as the Lake of the Royal Crocodiles) in Northern Rhodesia in 1914, he thought he was in heaven. He had finally found the area where his manor would be built. He could "live like an emperor" something that he would never achieve in the UK.
And when his dream is achieved, he finally marries Lorna Goldman, the orphaned daughter of Lorna Bosworth Smith, who had been his first love. It's really surprising that the young girl had married him as there was a great age difference and he already had problems with his sight. Their marriage is also a real "eye opener" of that period.
This is an excellent book and I just couldn't put it down once I started reading it. I just loved it.
When I saw the cover that stated "The True Story of an English Gentleman and His African Dream", I wondered if the book would come up to my expectations. Well it did indeed.
When Stewart Gore-Browne reached Lake Shiwa Ngandu (known locally by the Bemba people as the Lake of the Royal Crocodiles) in Northern Rhodesia in 1914, he thought he was in heaven. He had finally found the area where his manor would be built. He could "live like an emperor" something that he would never achieve in the UK.
And when his dream is achieved, he finally marries Lorna Goldman, the orphaned daughter of Lorna Bosworth Smith, who had been his first love. It's really surprising that the young girl had married him as there was a great age difference and he already had problems with his sight. Their marriage is also a real "eye opener" of that period.
This is an excellent book and I just couldn't put it down once I started reading it. I just loved it.
February 20, 2017
The lifestory of a mediocre, under achieving, socially awkward Englishman who moved to Zambia and deluded himself into thinking he was the saviour of a small section of the Bemba people. The author uses clever language to try and hide how this colonialist had this entitlement and felt that he was Gods gift to "savages". He physically beat grown men as a means of punishment. I suppose my gripe isnt with the author because she did a well enough job of piecing this mans life story through diary entries and letters, but i did more often than not, get the impression that she was going out of her way to justify this megalomaniacs actions.After all is said and done, my gripe is with colonialists and their arrogance.
November 23, 2007
Four stars for story. British officer cum Rhodesian settler builds massive estate in the middle of nowhere, his trials/tribulations, and the family legacy. It's like Jane Austen meets Out of Africa sort of -- completely nuts, and completely amazing. Not to mention that it's a true story pieced together from his letters and journals. Also, interesting to peek in on the Zambian independence movement. For those who absolutely cannot tolerate the concept of pompous imperialists, best to skip this one I think -- but those who are able to take it in sort of like watching monkeys at the zoo, it's worth a read.
October 16, 2024
The colonial mindset laid bare. An incredible story even by the standards of it's day. Nevertheless this repressed product of the British Empire also blazed a trail for the independence movement that brought the "wind of change" to Africa.
April 15, 2013
Just could not keep slogging through this. I was expecting a book about building a house in Northern Rhodesia, and all that entailed, and instead I got a biography of a colonialist prig. I found the writing uninspired, and the subject matter, as seen through Lamb's lens, uncaptivating. I think there might actually be a good story here, but it needs to be told by someone else.
August 27, 2012
Anyone who likes true stories about amazing people and the lives that they led will love this story. I like the narrative style of the author and found that the story remained interesting all the way until the end. A great addition to any library!
May 14, 2021
The Africa House is the story of Stewart Gore-Browne (1899-1967), an Englishman obsessed wth the beauty of Central Africa. Against all odds he builds a palatial estate in one of the remotest corners of Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) that was as impractical as it was vain and yet his love for this beautiful part of the world and its people was never in doubt. He fought for African independence and was the first and the only white man to be made a Grand Officer of the Companion of the Order of Freedom (the Zambian equivalent to a knighthood). Through Gore-Browne’s chronicles (personal letters and journals) and the skill of the author Christina Lamb pulling it all together, the reader gains a fascinating insight of life in Northern Rhodesia from the time of the Great War through to Zambia’s independence in 1964 and Gore-Browne’s death in 1967.
September 16, 2018
A friend loaned me this book in preparation of our eminent trip to Zimbabwe and Zambia. An fair read but not the most interesting or compelling.
January 11, 2009
What I learned from this book is that I can persevere to the end! It is probably just me, but I found it a real challenge. I like a straight forward story, and Lamb's constant going back and forth in time and place fractured the continuity I was wanting. I know I should probably be less time-space oriented!
After wading through it, which I did so slowly as to lose a lot that a quick reading would have provided, I re-read the first part again, and thought "Oh, now if I read the whole book again I would understand it better!" but alas, my motivation is not quite that great.
It certainly is an interesting look at "an English gentleman" in Africa; but there was more military and political reporting than I cared for (yes, I know that reflects on me, the reader, and not on Lamb, the writer). I kept wanting to better understand Gore-Browne the man, his Aunt Ethel who was always the center of his life from Lamb's perspective, and Lorna, the woman he married because Aunt Ethel had discouraged him from marrying her mother 20 years earlier. But the more they were revealed, the more upset with them I became, so ended up angry at all of them.
Ironically, I plan to read another book by Lamb, The Sewing Circles of Herat", to see if her writing will be easier to follow.
After wading through it, which I did so slowly as to lose a lot that a quick reading would have provided, I re-read the first part again, and thought "Oh, now if I read the whole book again I would understand it better!" but alas, my motivation is not quite that great.
It certainly is an interesting look at "an English gentleman" in Africa; but there was more military and political reporting than I cared for (yes, I know that reflects on me, the reader, and not on Lamb, the writer). I kept wanting to better understand Gore-Browne the man, his Aunt Ethel who was always the center of his life from Lamb's perspective, and Lorna, the woman he married because Aunt Ethel had discouraged him from marrying her mother 20 years earlier. But the more they were revealed, the more upset with them I became, so ended up angry at all of them.
Ironically, I plan to read another book by Lamb, The Sewing Circles of Herat", to see if her writing will be easier to follow.
June 22, 2012
I tracked this book down after seeing a picture of Shiwa House, an abandoned English country estate in the heart of Northern Africa on some website. It turns out that it was built between the two world wars by Sir Gordon Stewart Brown on a declining inheritance that went unusually far in the wreckage of British imperialism. This twenty-room mansion stood self-sufficient with modern amenities and its owner spent his days hunting rhinoceros and reading the classics in Latin from a fully stocked library.
Of course this fantasy came at a great cost, he lost his family and most of his fortune in the process and when he died it was almost immediately left to be reclaimed by the continent. What I always take from these books is how we moralists sit back and judge the consequences of these driven or compelled men, tsking at Hearst for his preposterous visions of some West Coast Castle and yet we have no problem admiring or enjoying the results of their labors. The fact of the matter is that many great things come from their dispute against reality. Perhaps it is not my path, but I have some empathy for it.
Of course this fantasy came at a great cost, he lost his family and most of his fortune in the process and when he died it was almost immediately left to be reclaimed by the continent. What I always take from these books is how we moralists sit back and judge the consequences of these driven or compelled men, tsking at Hearst for his preposterous visions of some West Coast Castle and yet we have no problem admiring or enjoying the results of their labors. The fact of the matter is that many great things come from their dispute against reality. Perhaps it is not my path, but I have some empathy for it.
October 25, 2018
Reading about how the English fared in colonial Africa may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I found the story of Stewart Gore-Brown’s efforts to set up house in Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia) fascinating. The material was well researched, and the story was colorfully told with a well-paced narrative that made this biography as easily digested as fiction. Given Gore-Brown’s rather rigid character, this might not have been the case in less skillful hands, but behind the upright Englishman struggling to replicate his accustomed English life in the jungle was a man who cared deeply about the local Bemba tribe. His foray into local politics provides a keyhole view into the competing views and struggles as Zambia (and Zimbabwe) emerged from their colonial selves into self-rule. I am anxious to read more by this talented journalist author.
October 13, 2018
Underwhelming and strange. A whole book on a (pretty deluded) white Englishman who built an enormous English country house in then Northern Rhodesia ... while he continued to be financially supported by his aunt well into his 60s and gradually became less racist?! Unclear what was supposed to be so compelling/impressive.
August 25, 2013
Clearly written biography of a man's determination to live as an English gentleman isolated in the middle of what was Northern Rhodesia. He lived out his dream to the best of his ability. Frankly, it wouldn't have been my cup of tea.
August 11, 2015
True story of an Englishman who built a huge estate/manor house in what was, in the early 1900's, Northern Rhodesia, and is now Zambia. This house still exists, miles away from "civilization" and is currently being restored. Quite readable and very interesting.
July 11, 2019
The creme de la creme of historical non-fiction ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
March 25, 2019
" it is the symbol of a man's vanity" said one of his grandchildren, and that summarizes the whole book.
This is a story of a vain, strange rich man that wanted to fulfill his dreams and only his dreams. He wanted to build a big house and chose Africa because it was there were he could "shine" and had the means, he married the daughter of his first flame because,well, he could - she was an orphan looking to get away from the very situation she was and married the first comer without knowing that he was her mother's beau ( even by those times this was askew)- , had an affair with his aunt, beat up grown men just to obey him but fought for their rights and independence from British/white man's rule.
Despite all of this, the author portraits Gore-brown wonderfully and very neutrally by stating facts not judging. The author lets the judging of Gore-Browns character to the reader.
This book is extremely well researched and the storytelling is very well paced, however it lacks for me the part of his wife, as soon as she disappears from his life, she disappears from the narrative of the book. But then, it is a book of the House and this gentleman's effort to build a grandiose life.
This is a story of a vain, strange rich man that wanted to fulfill his dreams and only his dreams. He wanted to build a big house and chose Africa because it was there were he could "shine" and had the means, he married the daughter of his first flame because,well, he could - she was an orphan looking to get away from the very situation she was and married the first comer without knowing that he was her mother's beau ( even by those times this was askew)- , had an affair with his aunt, beat up grown men just to obey him but fought for their rights and independence from British/white man's rule.
Despite all of this, the author portraits Gore-brown wonderfully and very neutrally by stating facts not judging. The author lets the judging of Gore-Browns character to the reader.
This book is extremely well researched and the storytelling is very well paced, however it lacks for me the part of his wife, as soon as she disappears from his life, she disappears from the narrative of the book. But then, it is a book of the House and this gentleman's effort to build a grandiose life.
November 10, 2024
I started the book expecting to read about a monster and ended up with a lot of respect for the subject. A very surprising book.
Whilst in many respects a flawed man he's a great example of the complexity of people. He was a massive snob but also someone whose closest political confident was a working-class jew who was the head of the railway union. He was someone who did beat servants when they failed him, but also fought hard for the rights of native Africans and acted as a mentor to many of Independence leaders, joining the independence party himself and taking Zambian citizenship Post-Independence.
Going to Shiwa is now definitely on my bucket list.
"The sounds of children's laughter from outside made him look up. Mark and Angela had cast off their shoes as usual, and were playing with some of the servant's children, showing them the red toy train he had bought in Selfridge's, and babbling away in Bemba as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "I hope sending them away to school, as we will have to eventually, won't change their wonderful innocence of the colour bar", he wrote to Ethel. "If I can only leave a beautiful home for the girls and better country for all my people at Shiwa, then it will all have been worth something.""
Whilst in many respects a flawed man he's a great example of the complexity of people. He was a massive snob but also someone whose closest political confident was a working-class jew who was the head of the railway union. He was someone who did beat servants when they failed him, but also fought hard for the rights of native Africans and acted as a mentor to many of Independence leaders, joining the independence party himself and taking Zambian citizenship Post-Independence.
Going to Shiwa is now definitely on my bucket list.
"The sounds of children's laughter from outside made him look up. Mark and Angela had cast off their shoes as usual, and were playing with some of the servant's children, showing them the red toy train he had bought in Selfridge's, and babbling away in Bemba as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "I hope sending them away to school, as we will have to eventually, won't change their wonderful innocence of the colour bar", he wrote to Ethel. "If I can only leave a beautiful home for the girls and better country for all my people at Shiwa, then it will all have been worth something.""
July 15, 2020
Re-read this remarkable story during a long drive around northern Zambia as I first read it 10 years ago before living in Zambia and wanted to see how the descriptions in the book compared to the actual places, including Shiwa house itself. The story of Sir Stewart Gore-Brown is a remarkable one, as is the role he played in helping the man who would become Zambia's first president secure bursary funds for education (Dr. Kenneth Kaunda). It's also a story of love, loss, and obsession. Lamb's research that incorporates many letters written between Stewart Gore-Brown, his Aunt Ethel, and wife Lorna, along with other historic documents from the time period spanning roughly 1900-1967 is also a fascinating chronicle of Zambia's path to independence. Little has changed with the manor itself, which is now in the very capable hands of Jo Harvey who has spent countless hours re-organizing the library, restoring the books, and together with her husband Charlie Harvey (one of Gore-Brown's grandsons) conducting extensive house repairs. This is a captivating read.
April 27, 2020
Fascinating story of Stewart Gore Browne, the English Gentleman in this true story, who designed an estate in Africa when he was a boy and never let go of his dream. Most interesting is his relationship with the Bemba natives who not only built and staffed his estate but some of who he counted as his best friends. He was a friend and advisor to two of the early black leaders when Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) was moving toward independence from the rule of Great Britain. I don't know what is more unbelievable, the estate he was able to build and maintain in the bush in Africa or his progressive view of a political partnership with the black Africans to rule the country. It didn't turn out just the way he envisioned, but his support of the black Africans was consistent. Great read if you're interested in a visionary's life story, a glimpse of the personal struggle of black Africans to win independence from Great Britain and a little romance on the side.
June 28, 2020
This book has been sitting unread on my bookshelf for more than ten years. Recently, when reading another book about Africa, I saw that The Africa House was mentioned as a source of reference. I took it down and read it. It's a terrific read and, by the time I got to the end, I was very moved, as the writer had managed to bring this strange story to life. Early on in the book, I have to admit that I had the impression that the subject, Stewart Gore Browne, was nothing more than a weird eccentric. But as the book progressed, I saw what a well-meaning person he was. The story is very well put together from Gore Browne's extensive diaries and letters. He comes across as quite a character, for sure, with a big heart. For anyone interested in reading about Zambia, the African bush full of lions, leopards and crocodiles, and the incredible challenge of running a farm there, this is the book for you.
October 25, 2020
I struggled to finish this book. While it was interesting to get a snapshot of life in Zambia as they moved towards independence, I found Gore-Browne to be odd, particularly in his relationship with his aunt Ethel. I am also not particularly fond of colonialism and all the details about the life of colonialists in Africa or other parts of the world. While Gore-Browne supposedly tried to support the ‘natives� he also mistreated many of them who worked for them. I visited Shiwa a few months ago. It’s a beautiful place but I did not find this story compelling and it was a struggle to finish.
March 27, 2023
This is one of the best book I have ever read! A great story of a British gentleman’s life and death in Africa. Nothing is ever easy, the land, the family, the wild animals,�. Can he overcome? Will the natives rule the land? I highly recommend this book create largely from his diary and letters to everyone.
April 22, 2018
Fascinating Story
An English country house in the middle of nowhere in Africa. A true story of English eccentricity. I found myself wanting to know more about his wife Lorna and his Aunt. I liked the current update at the end - saved me looking it up!
An English country house in the middle of nowhere in Africa. A true story of English eccentricity. I found myself wanting to know more about his wife Lorna and his Aunt. I liked the current update at the end - saved me looking it up!
June 17, 2018
This is high on my list of all time favourite. What an amazing account of building a life in Africa. Historically informative of the era. It was so well written it is easy to visualize the settings and the characters. Highly recommended.
April 11, 2020
Very interesting true story of an English aristocrat who built a house and village in Northern Rhodesia. Was involved in promoting black equality and his protege was Kenneth Kaunda, the first president of Zambia.
October 18, 2020
The story of Stewart Gore Brown is truly amazing, why the truth wouldn’t have needed to be twisted in the book. I had the pleasure of visiting the house and meet both Charles and Jo and then Mark at Kapishya hot springs; well worth the drive from Lusaka!
July 6, 2024
Fantastic true story of an English aristocrat who built a country manor in what would become Zimbabwe. The author used journals and historic documentation to tell a story of colonial Africa that I had not heard before.
October 4, 2017
Great read! Interesting & elaborate - truly takes you to a time of decadence.
August 23, 2018
The writing deserved 5 stars. The story is tough. I look forward to reading other Lamb books with a bit more hope, but perhaps she is only attracted to tough stories.
February 3, 2025
A compelling story of one man’s vision. A thoroughly good read.
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