O
ne of the little known facts about Nyeri is that the town’s St Peter’s cemetery is the final resting place of Lord Robert
Baden-Powell of Gilwell – the founder in 1908 of the worldwide Scouting Movement. Today, Scouts are thought to number between 25 and 45 million. Aside from his famed association with the Scouting Movement, Baden-Powell was a man of many talents; excelling at fishing and polo while enjoying big-game hunting. He was also an accomplished watercolourist and sculptor and took a keen interest in cine-photography.
Soldier Despite his dalliances with the arts, Baden-Powell was ostensibly a soldier at heart; rising to the position of Inspector General of Cavalry in the British Army. The Scouting Movement’s roots and
It was Baden-Powell’s second property named
activities are firmly embedded in the bushcraft that
Pax (Latin for ‘peace’) as the great man had also
Baden-Powell learned as a soldier during his time
lived in a property with same name in the UK, so it
in southern Africa.
became known as Pax Two or Paxtu.
Lord Baden-Powell first visited Kenya in 1906 and
Baden-Powell, who had earlier recuperated at Outspan
was immediately smitten by the area around Mount
after an illness, bought a share of Walker’s hotel
Kenya. So many years later and his work more
business to pay for his cottage. Baden-Powell once
or less done, Baden-Powell and his wife Olave
remarked that “closer to Nyeri, closer to bliss”. Sadly,
decided the to live full-time in Nyeri. They rented
his final years in Nyeri were short-lived. On 8 January
a modest one-room cottage in the grounds of the
1941, aged 83, the founder of the Scouting Movement
Outspan Hotel close to the centre of Nyeri. Baden-
died and was later buried in St Peter’s Cemetery.
Powell named his humble dwelling Paxtu. His gravestone bears a circle with a dot in the centre
which is the trail sign for ‘going home’
or ‘I have gone home’. Otherwise, the headstone just states: ‘Robert Baden-Powell, Chief Scout of the World’ surmounted by the Boy Scout and Girl Guide Badges. It summed up the man who led a simple life and wanted for little in the way of material possessions. When his widow Olave died 36 years later in 1977 in the UK, her ashes were flown to Kenya and interred next to her beloved husband.
MOUNT KENYA: A DUO HEMISPHERE DESTINATION
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