Farming Heritage

Ganzekraal is a farm dating back to the early 1700s. It was a key farm in the Groene Kloof (as the area north of Rietvlei and all the way to Geelbek on the Langebaan Lagoon was referred to in the time of the VOC) and is significant as part of the network of farms and buiteposte that stretched the VOC influence all the way from the Castle to Saldanha Bay.

Ganzekraal was one of the earliest freehold farms at the Cape, the title thereto having been given to Jacob van Reenen by a grateful government in recognition of his long and arduous trek to find the wreck of the Grosvenor (wrecked in 1782 on the North Transkei Wild Coast). The slave bell tower still stands today and this housed the bell from the Grosvenor, that Jacob had brought back from his expedition to find the wreck in 1790.

Old photo of Granzekraal

Jacobs Bay which lies West of Ganzekraal was named after Jacob Van Reenen and was used by him to load his grain and produce onto ships that would lie at anchor in the sheltered bay. Today it is the holiday resort of Ganzekraal offering chalets, camping and a conference center.

Many West Coast family names are associated with Ganzekraal, amongst them the Melcks, Duckitts, Cloetes, Van Der...

The aerial view of the old Borrowdale Farmhouse and outbuildings is truly remarkable. Today the area is dotted with established trees and multi-million rand homes so it is hard to imagine the rural landscape of the past. In the article below Valerie Gordon-Bennett shares some of her memories of growing up on Borrowdale Farm before and during the early days of Sandton. The article first appeared in the 1994 annual magazine of the Sandton Historical Association.

An aerial view of Borrowdale Farm

Borrowdale Road in River Club, Sandton, runs up from the Braamfontein Spruit to what is now Coleraine Drive. In the 1930s and 1940s, the farm of the same name -Borrowdale Farm - covered most of the ground between Coleraine Drive Ballyclare Drive, the Braamfontein Spruit and Bryanston Drive, with Bryanston on its north - nearly 200 acres.

Site of Borrowdale Farm (google maps)

The name ‘Borrowdale’ came from my great-grandfather, William Spark, who lived in the small village of that name in the Lake District, and operated a ferry on Derwent Water. His son, my grandfather, Joseph Spark, came to South Africa in 1898 and worked as an engineer on the railways. He married...

[Originally published in 2014] This wonderful article, written by Malcolm Wilson, describes the journeys of early hunters, settlers and prospectors as well as the development of Driefontein Farm on land which is now just a few kilometres from 'Africa's richest square mile'.

Early Settlers and Prospectors

The history of Panners Lane and Driefontein Farm is connected to the arrival of the earliest hunters, settlers and prospectors who crossed the Vaal River in the 1830s and 1840s.

In 1834 Carel Krige, a hunter, is said to have discovered alluvial gold in the Jukskei River near the confluence of the Crocodile River. This was technically the first discovery of alluvial gold on the Witwatersrand.

In the 1840s ownership of farms was undocumented and rudimentary allocations were made by the initial South African Republic the capital of which was Potchefstroom.

Amongst the allocated farms was Driefontein Farm owned by LP van Vuuren and Zandfontein Farm owned by Pieter Nel and later JC Esterhuizen.

In 1852, gold was found on the Witwatersrand by the Welsh geologist John Henry Davis on the farm Paardekraal (Krugersdorp). The find was kept secret by the government to avoid a possible influx of prospectors and Davis was deported from the boer republic.

In 1853 a prospector Pieter Jacobus Marais travelling between Potchefstroom and what is now Pretoria, found traces of alluvial gold at the confluence of the Crocodile and Jukskei Rivers. Later the same year, he stopped to pan for gold in the Klein Jukskei River today the Braamfontein Spruit...

The following article, highlighting two remarkable heritage sites south of Johannesburg, was compiled by Calvin Montgomery of the Southern Suburbs Heritage Society in 2013

A few weeks ago, a friend and I decided to spend the day trying to trace as much of the history/heritage sites of the southern areas of the city of Johannesburg as possible. It was decided that we would spend the day focusing on trying to find these sites chronologically in light of the City’s past, and establish the current state of these areas of historical interest in Jo’burg south as well as to begin to determine what could be done to promote the area from a heritage perspective.

The areas which constitute the ‘old’ and ‘new’ south are rich in history and cultural significance, and are unique in almost every respect to the rest of urban Johannesburg. Each of these areas tells a different story of Johannesburg’s past, from areas like Turffontein, La Rochelle and Kenilworth & Booysens– the ‘old’, to areas like Mulbarton, Glenvista and Bassonia –the ‘new’.

This article details two of our finds, namely the BaTswana ruins in the Klipriviersburg Koppies and the Sarel Marais homestead. The Klipriviersburg nature reserve is a 15 miniute drive from the Johannesburg City center, it is a true gem of the City and holds great potential for being an area of heritage interest, in that, it preserves two specific periods of Johannesburg/Witwatersrand’s history, namely the BaTswana and the trek boers of the ZAR.

The BaTswana

The...