M E M O R I A L S

Memorials are sometimes constructed, sometimes evolve naturally, but serve the purpose to remind us of specific events or occasions, or maybe the unintentional recording of journeys. Cemeteries and graveyards, and San sites too fall into this classification but I have chosen to specifically make those separate sections.

H e e r e n l o g e m e n t

Even with contemporary roads, Heeenlogement is by no means an easy reach. Considering this, one must try and imagine the difficulties of travelling here by the very earliest European explorers. That various indigenous tribes survived here at all seems impossible.

Numerous travellers recorded their names (graffiti, really) in the overhang in this barren place. Many are well documented figures in history, including Simon van der Stel on his way north seeking copper deposits. A fig tree mentioned in the earliest despatches still grows.

H i l d e b r a n d   M e m o r i a l

Veldkornet Hildebrand was a member of a Boer commando which occupied Darling before withdrawing before the advance of British forces. In the southernmost extent of their incursion to the Cape, he was killed on a nearby farm. At first buried where he fell, his body was later reinterred, given a dignified burial and in 1940 the site and memorial were consecrated.

T h e   S t a d s a a l

The walls of the unusually sculpted Stadsaal are littered with human names: many Nieuwoudts, a surname common in the area. But C Leipoldt and
Dr DF Malan (not shy to include his educational landmarks) are prominent.

L e i p o l d t ' s   G r a v e

C Louis Leipoldt’s grave is in the Pakhuis Pass which was originally constructed by Thomas Bain and completed in 1877. His placing here is of significance because of his deep love and association with the terrain of the Cederberg. Traces of San rock art are still visible on the rock face above the grave. Leipoldt was a noted Afrikaans writer, poet, medical doctor, botanist, wine connoisseur and chef.

A b r a h a m   E s a u

Abraham Esau was a  coloured blacksmith in Calvinia. Strongly anglicised by his education in an English Methodist mission school Esau was an enterprising and articulate personality in Calvinia’s coloured community.
By 1900 the spread of republican commandos raiding in the Cape was increasingly menacing and Calvinia's coloured inhabitants became strongly pro-British, led by Esau. When the local magistrate refused to issue arms to coloured men on the grounds that the war exclusively involved whites, a dismayed Esau turned to  the British army’s Namaqualand Field Force for his band of trusted followers to serve as informers of Boer movements and rebel activity. In reciprocation for this loyalty, a British military secret agent undertook to provide protection for Calvinia by imperial forces in the event of any Boer incursion.
It was a hollow promise. Calvinia was captured by an Orange Free State commando early in 1901. Being the district’s most troublesome and detested British collaborator, Esau was a marked man. Brazenly defiant to the end, he was executed in February 1901.

T h o m a s   M a c l e a r

Maclear Beacon
The site of the Maclear Beacon, placed in 1838 near the original north terminal of the Arc of Meridian, positioned by Abbé de la Caille, the first surveyor to introduce Geodetic Surveying in South Africa.
La Caille's calculations were proved by Maclear to be inaccurate – they had been affected by the influence of magnetism of the large, surrounding mountains.

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T h e   E n g l i s h m a n ' s   G r a v e

In sacred and loving memory of Graham Vinicombe Winchester Clowes Lieutenant 1st Battn. the Gordon Highlanders. Killed in action near this spot on 30th January 1901.
A minor skirmish in the Boer War ended this English soldier's life in a remote part of the Cederberg. Distant even today, his mother journeyed from England to erect a memorial, an act of dedication and love difficult to comprehend, then returned to commemorate his death annually, an especially arduous journey at the time.

A r d e r n e   G a r d e n s

Photographs from The Ardernes and Their Garden by Arderne Tredgold, published in 1990 by the Arderne Book Trust, Cape Town.

The Arderne Gardens were established in 1845 by Ralph Henry Arderne, a successful timber merchant originally from Cheshire, England, who acquired the land in Claremont where he built his home, known as The Hill.
He collected plants from all over the world. In time, the garden became famous. Development of the garden was continued by his son, Henry Mathew Arderne into the early part of the twentieth century. Admiration for the garden grew, as the citizens of Cape Town began to appreciate it as a place of exceptional beauty.
Henry died in 1914, and synchronously, the original Norfolk Island Pine began to wither and die.  The property then passed out of the Ardernes' hands and The Hill was demolished in the 1920s as the then owner of the property, a Mr G Wilks, intended to divide the land up into building lots.
Fortunately, the Director of Parks and Gardens in the Cape Town Municipality, Mr AW van den Houten, realised what a loss it would be if this garden were destroyed. He persuaded the City Council to buy the most important part of the garden, which stretched from the Main Road, to the site where the house stood. Mr AMJ Scheltens was the curator of the garden for the following 27 years and so loved the the garden that he refused to be moved from it even if it meant missing promotion.
These two men played an important role in preserving the work of Ralph Henry and his son for posterity.
From The Ardernes and Their Garden' by Arderne Tredgold, published in 1990 by the Arderne Book Trust, Cape Town.