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Craiglee
The Craiglee home and factory was built by John Weymouth for Alexander Murray of Coromandel Valley. Alexander Murray, who arrived on the India in 1840, planted fruit trees, had a jam and biscuit factory built in 1856 and employed many of the local men and women. Some women even walked from Hahndorf once a week to work at the factory. The firm which already had produced over hundred tons of jams and jellies planned to increase this to well over two hundred tons. In January 1876 the factory was in full production turning out large quantities of jam and biscuits for the local market and export.
Alexander Murray, by now the senior partner of the firm left in January 1876 for the Philadelphia Exhibition. The evening before his departure he was presented with an address, read by foreman S.J. Dailey, from his employees in which they expressed their earnest and hearty wishes for his safe journey. In responding Murray stated that he was altogether taken by surprise but would keep the document as a memento of good feeling between him and his workers. Afterwards he presented every employee with an excellent photograph of himself. Eventually it became A. Murray and Son and operated successfully until the turn of the century when it closed due to management problems. It was partly demolished in 1903. When the property was bought by the Dallwitz family it was restored to its former glory but is now once again in very poor condition. Several members of the Murray Family are buried at the Coromandel Valley Cemetery.
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