List of heritage sites in Tulbagh information

The ex-landdrost, Bletterman of Stellenbosch, originally drew up plans for the Drostdy, but after some progress had been made, by order of landdrost Van de Graaff the design was changed to a plan by Louis- Michel Thibault. Much to the concern of Governor Janssens, the building took longer and cost more to be completed than had been anticipated, being finally finished in 1807. It is one of the few extant buildings at the Cape of which Thibault is the undisputed architect.

The Drostdy had already fallen into a state of disrepair by 1822, a reason put forward for making Worcester the seat of the drostdy instead of Tulbagh. The Drostdy was sold to a young settler named Heatlie, after which it remained a private dwelling with a small farm.

Towards the end of the century it again fell into disrepair, but was restored by Sir Meiring and Lady Beck. It burnt down in the mid-1930s, and was again restored. The 1969 Tulbagh earthquake caused further extensive damage. It was then acquired by the National Monuments Council and, during 1973, restored for the third time.

The building is now in use as offices, reception rooms and museum The outbuildings flanking the dwelling have been demolished; the one on the right since having been rebuilt. Type of site: Drostdy.

The foundation stone of this Mission Church in the Neo-Gothic style was laid in July 1844 and the church was consecrated on 2 April 1845. The fund-raising for and erection of the building was under the supervision of the Rev. G. Zahn. A bell tower was added after 1890. Visual Description: It is a fairly large, rectangular building, originally with a thatch roof. It has Gothic Revival details: buttresses, slender pointed windows, etc. The bell-tower alongside is a later structure; though it was made to match the church, it is rather crude in design. Under the Group Areas Act the Coloured congregation (now under the DR Mission Church) has vacated its old premises. The church was damaged in 1969, but has been restored.

Catherina Magaretha de Wet had this house built about 1812. She was the widow of Jacobus de Wet, the owner of a farm, Straatskerk, a few kilometres west of Tulbagh. When her husband died in about 1807, she went to live in the town. The house is double-storeyed and shows a remarkable resemblance to Grosvenor House in Stellenbosch. Built on high foundations, it towers above the surrounding buildings. It is ascribed to Louis Michel Thibault, the well-known architect who was a frequent visitor to Tulbagh because his wife’s family lived there. Moreover, the house bears unmistakeable features of his style—the high stoep; the fine, clear-cut plasterwork; the façade and the arched roof over the stairs. After Mrs. De Wet’s death the property was bought by Pieter Francois Theron in 1822. It then passed successively to Frederik L. C. Engels, David J. de Vaal, Bernardus J. de Vaal, Adriaan Moorrees, J. P. Moller, A. J. van Wyk, C. A. Myburgh and G. C. Theron. By 1949 the old house was fairly dilapidated and in danger of being altered out of recognition but it was purchased and restored by Sir Alfred Beit on the advice of Dr. Mary Cook. Type of site: House Previous use: Residential. Current use: House.

Because the old passes were so difficult to negotiate, the pion cattle farmers in this area lived in great isolation, cut off especially from church and cultural activities; those that trekked down the Breede River were even more out of contact with the church or the government. Commissioner Gustav van Imhoff believed that the church was one of the most powerful cohesive forces in a community and recommended that more churches should be built in the interior of the country. In this way the Roodezand congregation came to be established in 1743. In the same year the Rev. Arnoldus Mauritius Meiring, the progenitor of the Meiring family in South Africa, . arrived at the Cape from the Netherlands. After an eventful voyage during which he lost his wife, he was appointed minister to the Roodezand congregation. Mr. Meiring’s first task was to give effect to Van Imhoff’s recommendation that a church should be built there. A simple little cruciform church was designed. Much of thç material, including the typical small so- called "Batavian" bricks, was imported from Holland, and the floor was paved with slate. The building was done, for the most part, by two members of the con gregation, Jacs. Theron and Francois du Toit; the brickwork and the solid woodwork hear witness to their skill. In 1796 the church was enlarged by extending the front by 3 metres and building a gallery. At the same time the fine baroque gable was built, as well as an attractive boundary wall round the church and graveyard. Mr. Meiring served the congregation until his death on 23 April 1757. The church and its original pulpit remained in use until 1878. After Mr. Meiring’s death he was succeeded by the Rev. R. Harders (1758-1774); the Rev. J. A. Kuys (1777-1787 and 1789-1794); the Rev. M. C. Vos (1794-1802); the Rev. H. W. Ballot (1803-1814); the Rev. J. J. Kicherer (1814-1825); Dr. George Thom (1825-1833); the Rev. Robert Shand (1834-1871) and the Rev. W. Rdbertson (1871-1883). When a new and bigger church was built in 1878, the "old" church served as school and as a hall for holding bazaars and other activities and in 1925 it became an historical museum." Visual Description: It had a plan in the shape of a Greek cross, as was traditional for the earliest Cape churches (except Drakenstein and the first one in Stellenbosch). This was an appropriate adaptation of the wing-construction of the Cape farmsteads to the centralized Protestant 'pulpit churches' of the Netherlands. In 1795 the church was enlarged (out of money raised by selling Church St.erven and by borrowing from the Moederkerk in the Cape) by the addition of about 3 m to the length of the E arm, which now became the front, the original entrance having been at the S, turned away from the street and towards the former course of the wagon road. The W wing was extended by a similar distance; this became the vestry. Galleries were built in the 3 other arms. At the same time the gable over the new entrance was built, an ornate holbol one of the type that, nearer Cape Town, would have belonged to the 1780s; it is unusual in being used as an end-gable here. The ends of the other 3 arms are half-hipped. The plaster pediment over the wide, vertically divided door, as well as the pilasters and swags flanking it and the heavy architrave, probably also date from this time, though stylistically they clash with the ornate baroque gable, as do the urn and swag on its face. But this, of course, can be expected in this transition period and far from the Cape. The windows have half-round heads. The interior of the church is of great simplicity and dignity of atmosphere. There is no ceiling, and the roof timbers are left exposed. The flagged slate floor is fairly recent and replaced a clay floor, such as nearly all Tulbagh houses originally had.

Of great beauty is the pulpit, of stinkwood and beefwood, with its octagonal canopy and barley-sugar-turned posts. It may date from the earliest years of the existence of the church and, if so, is the oldest extant pulpit in the country. It was well restored by Lady Beck. In the churchyard, surrounded by a white wall – erected in 1795 – stands an early burial vault. The church fell into disuse as such in 1878, when a new one, by Hager, was taken into use (since demolished). After having been used as a school for a couple of years, it stood empty and fell into disrepair – not improved by the reputed use made of it during the Boer War, namely to house English troops.

The old church was restored in 1914 and again in 1923 after it had, on the initiative of Lady Meiring Beck, been decided to turn it into a museum. After minor earthquake damage in 1969 it was once again restored, whereby some previous mistakes – eg the gate pillars – could be undone, and the date 1743 on the gable changed back to 1795. Type of site: Church, Museum Previous use: Church. Current use: Museum. This building is the oldest church building in the Cape still standing more or less in its original form.

Montpellier was granted to Jean Joubert, a Huguen. This fine example of a Cape-Dutch gabled house with its concavo-convex ("holbol") gable was probably built early in the Nineteenth Century on the farm which was originally granted in 1714 to Jean Joubert.

Visual Description: Due to the slightly oblique placing of the house in relation to Church Street, it is clear that the house predates the laying of this street. Its fenestration is irregular and the pointed gable which is peculiar to Tulbagh is probably 19th century. The house was extensively Victorianised, but has been returned to its appearance circa 1861. Type of site: House Previous use: Residential. Current use: House.