A Milnerton man has turned the remnants of Milnerton’s old wooden bridge into trophies for local sports clubs.
After retiring from property development 10 years ago, Simon Bezuidenhout started taking his hobby of restoring furniture more seriously.
Working from his garage at home he restores all kinds of furniture but mostly chairs and tables, he says.
After reading an article last year about plans to restore the wooden bridge at Woodbridge Island, Mr Bezuidenhout went to see if there was anything worth salvaging.
After having a word with the engineer, he left with “a bakkie load full” of the old jarrah wood.
Mr Bezuidenhout started making door stops with the wood and selling it.
“I got a great response, especially from people living on Woodbridge Island,” he said.
The positive response gave him the idea to make trophies for Milnerton’s golf and bowls clubs.
“I thought it would be nice to give something back to the community. The bridge is part of Milnerton’s heritage, so I thought I’d donate two trophies made of the wood to the clubs,” he said.
The golf club has women’s and men’s sections, and Mr Bezuidenhout made a trophy for each. The trophies have been kept as “raw” as possible with the old bolts found in the wood still attached.
Coated in varnish, each trophy also has a plaque on it which reads “Original Woodbridge Island bridge 1901”.
A vintage bowls ball has been screwed on top of the bowls trophy and a pair of old golf clubs adorns each of the golf trophies.
Mark Schacht, manager of the golf club, thanked Mr Bezuidenhout for “thinking out of the box”.
Mr Schacht said that while he had no use for the trophy at the moment, it would make a great floating trophy for future tournaments.
