Shiwa Ngandu

Shiwa Ngandu (also spelled Shiwa Ng'andu) is a grand English-style country house and estate in the Muchinga Province of Zambia, previously the Northern Province, about 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) west of the TAZARA Railway and half-way between Mpika and Chinsali. Its name is based on a small lake nearby, Lake Ishiba Ng'andu which in the Bemba language means 'lake of the royal crocodile'. The house itself is also known as "Shiwa House". It was the lifelong project of an English aristocrat, Sir Stewart Gore-Browne who fell in love with the country after working on the Anglo-Belgian Boundary Commission determining the border between Rhodesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

From his boyhood, Gore-Browne had an ambition to own an estate like that of his aunt, Dame Ethel Locke King, at Weybridge in England. Although comparatively wealthy himself, he could not afford such an estate in Britain. Land in Northern Rhodesia was very much cheaper for white settlers. At the boundary commission he had come to admire the Bemba workers and so he travelled to their country looking for a site. Arriving at Lake Shiwa Ngandu in April 1914 with his Bemba servants and porters, he knew he had found it. World War I intervened but its horrors only increased his desire to return to Shiwa Ngandu and achieve his dream. He also harboured the ideal of establishing a patrician regime of the kind whose time was ending in Britain after the war.

Construction of the mansion began in 1920 when Zambia was the British protectorate of Northern Rhodesia. The site was 400 miles (640 km) from the nearest railhead, a journey of many days over rivers and swamps. At that time there were no roads to the area. As well as building the estate's access roads and bridges, Gore-Browne built roads and bridges for the local colonial authority. Almost everything had to be made on site, including every brick used in the construction. Hundreds of labourers were employed, and with the help of oxen to haul the bricks in scorching heat, a substantial house was constructed within a few years. However, the building work did not stop until the late 1950s; an imposing gatehouse, a tower, colinaded porticoes, courtyards, additional rooms all added to its size and stature.

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