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Way back in 1827, David Baird, son of the local magistrate,
found the first reptile fossil near the frontier town of Beaufort in the Great
Karoo. The little town, renamed Beaufort West in 1869, lay in what became the
world’s richest collecting grounds for these fossils. Scientists have since
described the Karoo and its fossils as one of the great wonders of the world.
Collections of these ancient reptiles are in museums in South
Africa, England, the United States and Germany. And all the while scientists
work at unravelling the secrets of these fossils to find the truth about life
when the earth was young and the Karoo a swamp. Today visitors find out more
about them along the fossil
trail at the Karoo National Park outside the town.
Beaufort West lies south of a ridge of hills between two
rivers, the Gamka and Kuils, and to the north the Nuweveld Mountains with 230-million years
old rocks.
By the mid-1700s farmers on the first great trek into the
hinterland had moved north to find new grazing and settled along the Nuweveld
Mountains. Below these long blue mountains the vast plains with teeming game
herds became a hunter’s heaven. Then came the traders, adventurers, explorers,
smugglers and outlaws. Inevitably, lawlessness erupted. To maintain law and
order, the Governor of the Cape, Lord Charles Somerset, decided in 1818 to
establish the town Beaufort on the prosperous farm Hooyvlakte at the foot of the
mountains. It was named in honour of his father, the fifth Duke of Beaufort.
Beaufort West is the oldest town in the Central Karoo and its
municipality, proclaimed in 1837, is the oldest in South Africa. With modern
road and rail links, Beaufort West is ideally situated as a central base from
which to explore the Great Karoo and the passes of the Swartberg Mountains. It is
also the gateway to holiday resorts in the Western, Eastern and Southern Cape.
Beaufort West is a typical "platteland" town with a
rich, romantic history. The Bushmen once lived here and fine examples of
their rock engravings can still be seen on farms and at nearby Nelspoort.
Bird-like creatures are depicted on many of these engravings. Other artifacts
include rock gongs, or Bushman pianos, fashioned from dolerite or ironstone,
expertly positioned on high ground to produce differing tones when struck.
Fine examples of the town’s early architecture can be seen
on a comfortable walk through its historic centre. These cover a mixture of
flamboyant Victorian, elegant Georgian, serene Edwardian, Eclectic, Romanesque,
Cape Dutch, Neo-Gothic, Neo-Classic and Contemporary styles. Examples of typical
Karoo cottages still survive. Some of these buildings, the old Town Hall, the
old Mission Church and the Barnard House, all now part of the museum, as well as
Matoppo House and Clyde House, are national monuments.
The
handsome Neo-Gothic Dutch Reformed Mother Church, built in 1892, is a landmark
on the busy N1 route. In the eleventh Dutch
Reformed
parish in South Africa, the congregation built a small
thatched roofed building (1830), but soon membership grew and there
was need for the beautiful church seen today on what was once fondly known as
"Amen Corner". The church was designed by Scottish architect James
Bisset and its spire is a focal point of town. In its gardens are two
beautiful sandstone memorials complete with fleches and embellished with
crockets, in memory of two of its early ministers. Also in its grounds is
a memorial to General the Rev Paul Roux, who was a Boer soldier during the Anglo
Boer War.
Christ Church Anglican Church, built in 1850 in a heavy
Romanesque style, was designed by Sophie Gray, who modeled all her designs on
the country churches of England. She was the wife of Robert Gray, first Bishop of
Cape Town. Among her designs, this one is unique, local tradesmen departed from
her plans and built the church taller and wider.
There is an exceptionally handsome church in the Contemporary
style in Rustdene, on the south side of town. Striking use is made of rugged
natural materials which, in combination with the physical shape of the building,
create a unique atmosphere. Features of this church, built entirely by the
community, are simultaneously functional and symbolic in concept.
The town’s main street is hardly ordinary, behind its
name lies the tenderest of love
stories.
The main street was named in honour of Sir Rufane
Donkin, who
acted as Governor from 1820 to ’21. Sir Rufane, a true romantic, lost his wife
while they were stationed in India. So devastated was he that he had his
beloved Elizabeth’s hearth embalmed and he took it with him everywhere.
When Sir Rufane died, Elizabeth’s heart was buried with him in England.
At its north
end is the local jail, built in 1873, a building of considerable presence,
executed in the heavy Neo-Classic manner of the mid-Victorian period. Nobody
seems to know why it was built in the main street. Its first jailer, an
African-American, was also jailed there for negligence on duty - but he escaped,
never to be seen again.
A restored blockhouse, built in 1901 during the Anglo-Boer
War, still guards the railway bridge on the road south. Graves of Boer and British soldiers
can be seen in
the old cemeteries of Beaufort West, Nelspoort and Merweville.
Heart-transplant pioneer Professor Chris Barnard, the town’s most famous
son, is honoured in the museum. It houses a display of awards presented to him
and a replica of the original heart transplant theatre.
Beaufort West’s mid-town schools have a
novel way to raise funds - they are now using an extinct giant creature to a new
product. The Pelorovis that appears on the label of their olive oil
bottle shows a primitive buffalo that
lived in the Karoo centuries ago. Oddly enough this giant had been extinct for
almost 10 000 years by the time San artists carved its likeness on the rocks at
Nelspoort, say rock art experts. Until 2002 Sentraal High School, Nico
Brummer Primary and the Preparatory School, sold olives picked from 500
trees to other producers for pressing and preserving. In 2003 the
schools decided to buy a press and produce their own cold-pressed virgin
oil for sale. The first olive trees for this project were planted in 1960.
The project has been so successful that the schools plan to plant another 120
trees during the year.
