Durbanville

Fifty years after van Riebeeck landed at the Cape, the Tygerburg hills were occupied by loan farms. Within these farms was an outspan with a good strong spring of sweet water that became an important stopping place on the road to the north.

This stopping place became known as Pampoenkraal (Pumpkin Patch) and a village was laid out in 1806. On the 2nd September 1836 it was renamed D’Urban in honour of the Governor of the Cape from 1836 to 1838, Sir Benjamin D’Urban. Unfortunately the following year, Port Natal changed its name to Durban. This caused some confusion, such as that carrying on today with towns having similar names like Ladismith (Western Cape) and Ladysmith (KZN). To avoid this, the name was changed to Durbanville in 1886.

Up until the mid-19th century D’Urban was a farming centre with a church, school and no doubt a trading store. Prosperity arrived with the founding of King Brothers Wagon Works. These works expanded to take up half a block, extending from Church Street and running between Durban and Gladstone roads up to the carpark between Durban Road and Scher Street. It was said by some to be the greatest wagon works in South Africa and at its height employed 80 people. The business closed before the First World War.

A wagon business needs a blacksmiths and Baxter Brothers started their establishment around the same time. Their works were situated where the Caltex fuel station is at the corner of Wellington Road and...

In the article below Cathy Robertson tells the story of the meticulous restoration of Onze Molen in Durbanville in the mid 1980s. The article was first published in the 1986 edition of Restorica, the journal of the Simon van der Stel Foundation (today the Heritage Association of South Africa). Thank you to the University of Pretoria (copyright holders) for giving us permission to publish.

One normally associates the romantic vision of windmills, with their sails turning majestically in the wind, with Holland. A portion of the Cadastral map of Cape Town c.1893 indicates that this was a common sight along the Liesbeek and Black valleys too. The most familiar windmills were the truncated-cone tower-mills which were in evidence early in the eighteenth century. Only one South African windmill with wings has survived the ravages of time - Mostert's Mill in Mowbray. It was restored in 1935 by a famous Dutch millwright, Bremer. He left a maintenance manual for adjusting and repairing the mill and this is preserved at the mill. 

There were many watermills and horsemills in the country areas but very few windmills. A few simple tower-mills were erected in the Western Province. The tower of one still stands at Windmeul, Agter-Paarl, the base of another in the district of Malmesbury and a portion of a tower at Durbanville was used as a basis for the reconstruction of Onze Molen. 

This windmill at Durbanville has been reconstructed as the focal point of a building project financed by the Natal...