A Survey Of The Origin And Development Of Towns, Villages And Hamlets At The Cape Of Good Hope: With Particular Reference To Their Physical Planning And Historical Townscape.

This is the first serious study of the physical history of the older towns of an area of the former Cape Colony reaching north as far as Calvinia and east to Grahamstown and Colesberg. Of almost one hundred towns, villages and hamlets the foundation is sketched as well as the role of surveyors and others factors, in their initial layout and subsequent growth. Well over seven hundred illustrations including hundreds of early watercolours and pioneer photographs, most of them never published before, record their appearance up to the beginning of the 20th century. The book describes the formation of new drostdy districts like Swellendam, Graaff-Reinet and Worcester, of new Dutch Reformed church congregations like Tulbagh and Robertson of boeredorpe like Montagu and Calitzdorp, of harbour settlements like Simon’s Town and Mossel Bay of mission towns like Genadendal and Mamre. It illustrates things like water erven, leibeurte, tuis huisies, outspans and market squares. A unique feature of the book are the many detailed aerial photographs, few of them ever seen in print, some dating back to the 1930s and showing the towns before modern developments brought about irrevocable change in the townscape.

Although containing mostly previously unpublished information, research and insights all this is presented in a very readable style. With its rich pictorial component it will be a coffe table volue as much as an invaluable reference book.