#729 Beyond Tulbach

About Tulbach

Tulbagh, named after Dutch Cape Colony Governor Ryk Tulbagh, is a town located in the “Land van Waveren” mountain basin (also known as the Tulbagh basin),^[3] in the Winelands of the Western Cape, South Africa. The basin is fringed on three sides by mountains, and is drained by the Klein Berg river and its tributaries. The nearest towns are Ons Rust and Gouda beyond the Nuwekloof Pass, Wolseley some 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) to the south inside the basin, and Ceres and Prince Alfred Hamlet beyond Michell’s Pass in the Warm Bokkeveld.

History[edit]

The basin has been inhabited for thousands of years by indigenous Bushmen and Khoi peoples. It was about 300 years ago when, after a land grant by the Dutch Colonial Government to a more or less equal number of Dutch and Huguenot settlers to settle the area, that the town of Tulbagh was founded. The region was named “Land van Waveren” in 1699 by Willem Adriaan van der Stel in honour of the Oetgens van Waveren family, from which his mother was descended. Before this date, but also subsequent to it, the region had also been known as Roodezand (“red sand”). The region corresponds to the present Tulbagh district, named after Governor Ryk Tulbagh. The town developed slowly and over time and in the period many notable examples of Cape Dutch architecture, Victorian and Edwardian houses and other buildings such as the Oude Kerk (1743) and the Oude Drosdy (the original colonial Magistrate’s complex) were built.

Boland Earthquake 1969[edit]

In September 1969 the Boland area was hit by an earthquake that caused considerable damage to the town of Tulbagh. Many of the Church Street buildings were destroyed. The extent of the damage was aptly described by the Journal Bulletin of the Simon van der Stel Foundation in 1973: “A street that somehow captured the essential spirit of a unique culture looked as if it was in the throes of a nightmare: many fine gables had either tumbled or were totally destroyed, whole sections of many houses had collapsed, most of the soft brick walls had burst open in wide cracks, plaster had been torn by off in large sheets, rafters and roofs had caved in. Everything appeared to be in total and irreparable ruin.”^[4]

After the disaster in Church Street extensive projects of restoration began with the National Committee for the Restoration of Historic Buildings in Tulbagh and its Environment.^[5] Because of this work Tulbagh now contains possibly the largest number of Cape-Dutch, Edwardian and Victorian provincial heritage sites in one street in South Africa, and remains a major tourist attraction of the town to the present day. The work started by the committee has been continued to the present day by various residents of Tulbagh, but also significantly by the Tulbagh Valley Heritage Foundation which aims to restore and maintain “all structures older than 60 years, the cultural landscape and undeveloped properties connected to the historical structures above”.^[6]