The original fort of the Cape of Good Hope

If one considers the fact that there are still intact man-made structures dating from 3700 BCE elsewhere in the world, the legacy of South Africa’s built environ- ment is, by comparison, in its infantile stage. In fact, the country’s oldest surviving built structure, the Castle of Good Hope, in Cape Town, is just a mere 337 years old.

This is certainly not to say that the country had no structural legacy before the arrival of colonial settlers in the mid-seventeenth century. On the contrary, there is archaeological evidence that extensive stone settlements dotted the landscape from at least the first millennium CE. Unfortunately, none has survived to the present day intact and, thus, our built legacy really must date from just three centuries ago.

While the Castle of Good Hope is certainly the oldest surviving building in South Africa today, it is interesting to note that it was not the first building to be erected by the Dutch colonials. The first was the original fort, built between 1652 and 1656 under the auspices of the Cape’s first colonial administrator.

The reasons for the establishment of a trading outpost at the southern tip of Africa in the mid-seventeenth century are well documented and need hardly be recounted here. But suffice to say that the Cape Peninsula, which was located halfway between the Dutch East India Company’s (DEIC’s) base in Amsterdam and its trading empire in the East, was the most strategic location to establish a victualing station to service the food and water requirements of its fleet of maritime trading vessels.

One of the orders given to Jan van Riebeeck, the assistant surgeon in the employ of the DEIC, who, in 1651, volun- teered to undertake the command of the initial Dutch settlement at the Cape of Good Hope, was the stipulation to build a fort that could protect the fledgling out- post from attack from either the sea or the interior. The fort was also expected to serve as lodgings for the permanent garrison, as a storage place for fresh supplies and as a clear marker to ships from other nations that the land was claimed for the DEIC’s benefit.

The directors of the DEIC, who were more commonly referred to as the Lords Seventeen, stipulated that the fort had to provide accommodation for 70 to 80 people and be situated close to land suitable for both the establishment of a vegetable garden and the pasturing and breeding of livestock. Thus, the spot chosen for the fort was just behind the beach, the line of which ran along what is today Strand street, just east of the Fresh river, which flowed from high up on Table Mountain. Using modern-day references, the fort was located on the site now predominantly occupied by the Grand Parade.

Work on the fort began almost immediately after the arrival of Van Riebeeck and his small outfit of Dutch settlers on April 8, 1652.

The tools they brought with them to build the fort were basic in the extreme and included shovels, spades, picks, mattocks and wheelbarrows. Not only were the tools simple; the material available in the immediate vicinity was considerably wanting and the builders were compelled to use clay and small branches as the main building elements.

The design of the fort, which was formally named Goede Hoope, in accordance with the instructions of the Lords Seventeen, was simple enough being a quadrangular structure with pointed bastions on each corner. Interestingly, each bastion was named after the first four ships to lie in anchor at Table Bay, the south point being the Dromedaris, the east point Walvis, the west point Oliphant, and the north point Reijger.

However, given the poor nature of the available building material, as well as the often extreme weather conditions, progress was slow. While in winter the builders had to contend with heavy rainfall, often fearing that the rain might wash the construction away altogether, in summer they had to work in the severely strong south easterly wind. In fact, in one diary entry from early 1653, Van Riebeeck remarked: “No wheelbarrows could be pushed along the planks [on the fort] on account of the strong wind and it was hard enough to walk empty-handed and remain standing. And as a result of the dry wind, the earth is becoming hard and as difficult to dig up as hard rock.”

Despite such hardships, by the end of 1653, the outer clay wall of the fort had been completed and work on the inner buildings had begun.

Given that the clay used was entirely unsuitable for building purposes and the wall needed constant repairing, even while being constructed, Van Riebeeck realised that the inner buildings of the fort would have to be built of bricks and lime, if they were to have any durability. So, in March 1653, he ordered the erection of a kiln – the first in South Africa – at which they could manufacture bricks for building purposes. The lime was produced from shells sourced from Robben Island.

Construction of the inner buildings was painstakingly slow and it was only in mid-1656, four years after the project had been initiated, that the entire fort was completed. On completion, the fort comprised of buildings necessary to house an entire community, including accommodation facilities, kitchens, a sickbay, workshops and storerooms. A council chamber, which also served as a church on Sundays, was also built within the fort. As was customary, the structure was protected by a moat and cannons placed along all the ramparts.

However, given that the outer earthen walls required constant maintenance and repair, especially in the wet winter months, and fearing a British attack on the Cape on account of the outbreak of hostilities between the two nations in March 1665, the Lords Seventeen decided later that year to replace the structure with an entirely new stone fortification. Thus, it was that, in the following year, construction of the present-day Castle of Good Hope started.

Interestingly, the original fort remained intact for a decade after the stone fort had been completed and it was only in 1685 that the original structure was demolished.

A model of the original fort can be viewed in the Castle Military Museum.