Castle of good hope

South Africa’s built environment, at least that dating from the colonial era, is celebrating a noteworthy milestone this year as it marks the 350th anniversary of the start of construction of the iconic Castle of Good Hope, considered South Africa’s oldest surviving building.

It has already been established that the castle was by no means the first building to be erected on the shores of Table Bay. The first was a four-bastioned fort, built under the auspices of Jan van Riebeeck between 1652 and 1656 to provide protection for the Dutch East India Company’s (DEIC’s) fledgling victualling station. Unfortunately, the structure soon proved highly susceptible to the degrading elements of the Cape Peninsula’s weather and, it was believed, would be vulnerable to attack in the event of an outbreak of hostilities.

In fact, the construction of the new castle was prompted by the outbreak of war in March 1665 between the Dutch and the English, in the so-called Second Anglo-Dutch War, over control of the seas and lucrative maritime trading routes.

Naturally, the castle had to be an improvement, both structurally and defensively, on the original fort. Thus, the design approved by the Lords Seventeen was a pentagonal structure with bastions at each corner, a design that largely adhered to the principles of the Dutch defence system adopted at the beginning of the seventeenth century and implemented in almost every colonial outpost – from New Amsterdam to Batavia. Not only did a pentagonal structure provide a larger protected enclosure, but the bastions, which were built at acute angles, also offered greater protection from invaders, as they commanded both walls and the flanks of the adjacent bastions. Moreover, the bastions on the landside were built slightly higher than those commanding a view of the sea so that, in the event of an attack from the sea – a highly likely eventuality, given the maritime nature of the DEIC’s activities – the cannons could be turned around and fired over the sea-facing ramparts. As a final defence, a 25 m moat was also dug around the fort.

The dimensions of the new fort reflected the strategic importance of the victualling station as the halfway point between Europe and the trading ports of the East. Its design was considerably large in proportion, with each of the five walls between the large projecting bastions being 150 m long and 10 m high. It fell to the new commissioner, Isbrand Goske, and his assistant, Dutch engineer Pieter Dombaer, to implement the project.

Preparatory work on the site, which was located just 220 m east of the original fort along the shoreline, started soon after the arrival of Dombaer, who landed in Table Bay in August 1665. This included the stripping of vegetation, the digging of foundations up to 6 m in depth and the gathering and preparation of building material.
(It is interesting to note that fairly recent investigations have revealed that the site on which the castle was built was not archaeologically sterile ground – occupational debris left by Stone Age people who inhabited this region for at least 600 000 years has been discovered beneath the foundations of the fort.)

Given the fact that the Netherlands was still at war and construction of the fort was of the utmost priority, all preparatory work was completed within just four months, enabling the governor, Zacharias Wagenaar, to lay the foundation of four corner stones on January 2, 1666.

Both the significant size of the structure and the urgency of its erection meant that a considerably large workforce was required. The main workforce, at least those who actually built the fort, comprised 300 sailors and soldiers commandeered from passing DEIC ships. Bands of local Khoikhoi men and women supplemented the workforce from time to time. While construction may have been undertaken by a paid workforce, it was slaves who collected and conveyed all the necessary building material.

Given the degrading nature of the Cape Peninsula’s weather and the consequent challenges experienced in maintaining a structure built of clay and timber, it was instructed that the new fort be built of stone and mortar. The granite that comprises Signal Hill was deemed the closest and most suitable material for the construction, and, thus, a quarry – the Strand Street quarry, at the base of the hill – was worked by slaves from 1665. Slaves were also used to fell trees in the densely forested enclave the Dutch dubbed t’Houtbaaijten (literally, ‘wooded bay’) and convey them around the back of Table Mountain to the Table Bay beachfront. They were also used to collect shells on Robben Island, which were ground down and burnt into lime mortar.

The pace of construction largely reflected the political situation of Europe: as war raged between the rival trading nations and an attack on the outpost loomed large, so the speed of building was escalated; conversely the pace slackened once peace was restored. Within the first 18 months of construction, two bastions and their adjacent walls had already been completed. However, following the declaration of peace between the Dutch and the English in July 1667, construction came to a virtual standstill and it was only with the outbreak of war between the French and the Dutch in 1672 that building was resumed with vigour.

By 1674, the fort had been completed to a sufficient degree to allow for occupation by Goske, who, by that time, had been appointed governor of the Cape outpost. However, it was not until 1679, 13 years after construction had started, that the entire fort, with its inner buildings, was completed. The first governor to occupy the completed fort – which comprised living quarters, offices, an armoury, kitchens, a bakery and a church – was Simon van der Stel.

The Castle of Good Hope, which was declared a national heritage site in 1936 and is today considered one of the world’s best preserved examples of seventeenth century DEIC architecture, is open to the public every day except Christmas Day.