Interesting facts

Start of walking Route

With the founding of Heidelberg in 1855, the town's residents designed this crest. The Heidelberg Catechism was the basis on which the Dutch Reformed Church was built.

The church was the primary reason for the town's establishment, resulting in the town being given the same name.

The crest is divided into three sections:

* A Crenelation - (Castle wall or battlement at the top). This stands for law and order. This is seen on many Scottish crests.

* The Golden Bible - This symbolizes the role played in founding Heidelberg, and the role it still plays in our community. The red surrounding the Bible symbolizes life’s vitality and energy.

* The Aloe - This is typical of the Southern Cape, and the white background represents purity.

* The Jumping Golden Lion - This is on Germany’s crest, but the background colour differs. Heidelberg in the Western Cape is green, which symbolizes our agricultural environment, whereas Germany's lion has a blue background.

* The Motto - “ Faith and Commitment”

This is what the town still aspires to today. The crest was developed over 100 years before Apartheid, in an era when everyone lived and worked in relative harmony.

The glass mosaic crest at the entrance to the Town Hall was crafted and donated in 2019 by Ann Powell, originally from Wales. She moved to Heidelberg in 2010 to retire and learned the art of mosaic at Starnation Art Studio.

Heidelberg gets new walking route

2017 saw the re-launch of Heidelberg's history Route.

The current crest on all the old houses were made by local potter Kallien Louw. This crest is unique to Heidelberg.

The original owners promised to upkeep and maintain the houses and their history for prosperity.

Heidelberg forms an interal part of a greater surround. Witsand, Port Beaufort and Slangrivier plays vital roles.

The Hopkins legacy

Progenitor Charles Kingsley Hopkins

One is amazed when you start reading how the region's towns came into being and how the histories of the people of the three towns, Heidelberg, Slangrivier and Witsand have been interwoven over the years.

The Hopkins name, for example, is strongly associated with the establishment of the churches that still exist in the Heidelberg region, from the 19th century to the present. Charles Kingsley Hopkins, progenitor of the Hopkinses of the region, was a remarkable man. His contribution to the development of the town and its people still resonates today.

Not only did he contribute financially generously to the establishment of the NG Church in 1855, which ensured the growth of the town Heidelberg. He also sided in the following year with the founder and first pastor of the Independent Church (later the Congregational Church), Rev. Henry Charles Helm, and financially supported the new congregation so well that the church building debt was paid off within five years.

His friendship with the pastor was so close that the two took turns observing the services in the Independent (Congregational) Church. On Sunday evenings in particular, the church was packed with white and black villagers who came to listen to the services. In the church itself, parishioners such as the Octobers, the Kings and the Novembers showed strong leadership here around 1890-1903. Cecile Hopkins, wife of Charles Kingsley, confirmed that her son, also Charles Kingsley Hopkins, was very closely involved in the building of the new church, Charis Christian Church, and had been a church friend there for a long time. So it seems that church building, generous donorship and philanthropic blood still ran thick in the Hopkins family four generations later!

These monuments, and those in Slangrivier and Witsand, are already more than a century and a half old, and stand as silent testimony to what can be achieved if a community pursues a joint goal.

Hopkins, Henry Charles

Rev. Henry Charles Hopkins (born Heidelberg, Western Cape, 3 April 1918; passed away Cape Town , 20 November 1992) was a pastor, army chaplain and Cape archivist and historian in the Dutch Reformed Church (NG Kerk).

Rev. Hopkins completed his schooling at the high school in Heidelberg where his paternal grandfather, an English immigrant, was a well-known general merchant. Rev. Hopkins' father was an English immigrant and a fancy hat maker in Stellenbosch and later a prominent general merchant in Heidelberg, Cape. He was converted under the preaching of Dr William Robertson and became a member of the Ned Geref Church. His marriage to a young Bosman girl meant that the Englishman who came from England to the Cape of Good Hope became an Afrikaner and elder of the Ned Geref Church.

After his schooling, the young Henry goes to the University of Stellenbosch where he obtained his BA Honors degree in History on the basis of an exam he had already taken years before. A master's degree in history followed, after which he qualified as a church minister at the Theological Seminary. At Stellenbosch, where he studied from 1936 to 1943, Hopkins was simultaneously Student Council chairman and also primarius of the now contentious Wilgenhof residence.

He served for a year as a proponent (candidate-minister) in the well-known Tower Church in Paarl and during this time married Hanna Wiese. In 1945 he became pastor of the NG congregation Rossville in the village of Rhodes in the North-Eastern Cape. He only stayed in the congregation for a year and a half. On 7 September 1946 he was confirmed as pastor of the NG congregation Alice with work circle Fort Beaufort. When the NG congregation of Fort Beaufort separated from Alice in 1949, the church council of the daughter congregation called as their first pastor the 31-year-old Rev. Hopkins.

He held his last regular teaching post in the congregation of Robertson in the Breede River Valley and in 1955 he became an Army chaplain with station Oudtshoorn-Wes. In 1961 he left for Cape Town to become chaplain in the NG congregation Wynberg. His 13 years here were the longest in any congregation he was associated with.

During this time he worked closely with the church archive. Rev. Hopkins had a lively interest in history and genealogy. This interest began when, as a 13-year-old, he wanted to try to determine when his great-grandfather was born. In the years that followed, he expanded his interest so that his collection of historical photographs alone later spanned more than 100 albums. On 1 November 1974 he was appointed archivist of the NG Church in South Africa, as the Synod of Western and Southern Cape was known at the time. He had a remarkable memory for dates and places and many people and academics said that he was a living encyclopedia of family names and relationships. From 1967 he was also a faculty member of the South African Academy of Science and Art . He built up an extensive knowledge of well-known church figures and over many years compiled the In Memoriam of pastors who had passed away in the previous year or so, for the NG Church's Yearbook .

As Church Archivist, Rev. Hopkins followed in the footsteps of the first archivist, the Rev. Andries Dreyer. Hopkins himself has published the following congregations' histories (with the period covered): Calitzdorp, 1873 to 1973; Ceres, 1855 to 1955; Cradock, 1818 tot 1968; Darling, 1853 to 1953; De Hoop, 1911 to 1961; Fort Beaufort , Memoir , in which he wanted to keep the connection with the past alive for members by describing the new congregation with reference to its prehistory; Heidelberg (Cape), 1855 to 1955; Herold, 1910 to 1960; Joubertina, 1907 to 1957; Rondebosch , 1891 to 1966; Somerset-Wes , 1819 to 1969; Sutherland, 1855 to 1955 (republished in 2005 as the first part of Kudde onder die Suidersterre – Flock under the Southern Stars).

From his pen also appeared Maar een soos hy - But one like him about the former president of the Senate, cmdt. Chris van Niekerk, and also probably his most famous book, Die moeder van ons almal -The mother of us all on the history (1665 to 1965) of the Groote Kerk in Cape Town.

Rev. Hopkins became an emeritus on 29 April 1984 when he was 66 years old and retired at Bettys Bay . However, he was not granted a long retirement and died eight years later of a heart attack in a Cape Town hospital. The Hanna Hopkins House in Cape Town was named after his wife. He was also survived by two sons and five grandchildren.

The Barry's

Joseph Barry, the founder of Barry & Nephews

The Barry empire that was built on the extensive trading network of their company Barry & Nephews, which has in terms of economic dominance not seen its equal since in the Overberg.

The Barrys, the Overberg, and the harbour of Port Beaufort

The Kadie arrives with 158 screw steamer with sails, was built on the Clyde in the vard of Mr. Archibald Denny. She embodied all the modern conveniences and had fifteen bests for passengers. After she had been launched she had to pas the usual tests for a trial trip, but on that occasion her "engines wrought admirably and the speed of the vessel when under steam alone considerably exceeded 10 knots an hour", reported the Dunbarton Herald. She left the Clyde on is July 1859 and arrived at Port Beaufort on 26 September of that year.

Captain James Fowler, who was "intimately acquainted with the Cape comm navigation", had brought her out from Scotland. The passengers on board included Mr. and Mrs. Samuel (the new rector of the Swellendam Grammar School), Mr. Watson (tutor to Thomas Barry's children), Mr. Davey, Mrs. Fowler, two children and a servant.

The Kade was to be used for the establishment of a regular line of communication between Cape Town and Port Beaufort, and also to cope with the Breede River trade at Malagas. Sailing ships in the past had struggled up the river to Malagas, but it was a slow and arduous process. The arrival of the Kodie at Port Beaufort and her journey to Malagas in two and a half hours created we to hug the r something of a sensation, as can be expected. She was to have taken along and as a reason fo number of friends interested in the prosperity of the Overberg, but the rain prevented them from making the trip. Nothing, however, deterred some of the younger Barrys from going and with Gambold Dunn, the "experienced Port Beaufort pilot", in charge, Kadie arrived at Malagas "amid the firing of cannons and waving of flags"; she was the first steamer to have graced that part of the Breede River the Overberg Courant proudly announced.

The Overberg Courant spoke of "the bold and spirited undertaking of Messrs. Barry in purchasing the Kadie, but cautious old Joseph Barry would not have expended £5,000 on a wild venture. The Kadie came at a time when the drought and the shortage of draught animals was being felt. Rapid deliveries were necessary to increase exports from Port Beaufort and more especially Malagas. The Kadie could enter the bar and ascend the river irrespective of favourable winds and tides. Yet in a way the purchase of the Kadie was a bold undertaking in that she had to brave the hazards of a wicked coast with few navigational facilities to assist her. But again she was not dependent on winds and did not have to huig the rugged coast to shelter from adverse winds, which was often cited as a reason for shipping disasters.

Witsand & Port Beaufort

The historically important small harbour town of Porn Beaufort that unlocked the economic potential of The Overberg in the 100 century, hugely impacting on the region and its inhabitants, and Witsand the fisherman's village and holiday resort.

The history begins in 1817 when Lord Charles Somerset had the Breede River Surveyed and found that it was suitable to accommodate a port. He named the eastern bank of the river "Port Beaufort" in honour of his father the Duke of Beaufort. In 1831 Captain Benjamin Moodie was granted the adjacent farm Westfield, part of which would later become Witsand. Port Beaufort's history subsequently ran hand in hand with the rise of the Barry family's business empire.

By the mid 1800s Port Beaufort made a significant contribution to agriculture, trade d general economy in the region. Merchandise was distributed from the harbour to all the small Overberg towns, and produce, of which wool turned out to become the most important commodity, was shipped back to Cape Town. Before Port Beaufort was established, all goods were transported to and from the Cape by ox wagon. The arduous force used by the wagons crossed precipitous mountain ranges along road passes still in their infancy. This new harbour brought about a significant change. Subsistence farmers Immediately gained quick and convenient access to the Cape markets, which brought Financial progress and prosperity to the Overberg,

Port Beaufort was once compared to Algoa Bay in the first decades of its existence. Yet, it wasn't destined to become a permanent gateway for trading vessels serving the Overberg. With the death of Joseph Barry, the founder of Barry & Nephews, and the wrecking in the Breede River mouth of their own small steamship, the Kadie, in the same year, Port Beaufort was struck a decisive blow. The sudden collapse of trade through the port resulted in the gradual decline of the town. Although limited trading was carried on for some years after 1865, Port Beaufort's fare was in fact sealed. Nobody with an enterprising spirit and the necessary capital came to the fore to revive the coastal trade d the harbour Barry's dream of a great river port, which almost came to fulfillment, fell into oblivion.

SS Kadie

The Kadie steam ship could not combat the dangerous bar long enough, for on a fateful November 1865 the Kadie struck the rocks on the west bank of the river was lost. Port Beaufort was her home and it was fitting that she should finally e to lay her bones on its shores. She had been to Mossel Bay and was ning to Cape Town via Port Beaufort, and on Friday the seventeenth she sered the Breede River, but her skilful commander had tried the crossing once se often. No lives were lost and the Kadie was left with the wind and rain Narsening her twisted hull. On Saturday the Argus reported, "the loss of the Kadie was talked about as if an old friend were gone. We have been so accustomed to we the plucky little craft come in and out of the bay with her red cutwater that it difficult to believe she will not appear again. 48 The Kadie had traded on the south coast for six years and in that time had made no fewer than 120 voyages and rounded the L'Agulhas point 240 times.

The value of the produce that the Kadie took annually between Cape Town and Port Beaufort was estimated at between a hundred and a hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling. She was insured for £4,000, slightly less than her actual value. On 25 November 1865 the Kadie was sold for 5/- and her cargo for £8.

Immediately after the loss of the Kadie Barry & Nephews started for Cape Town, with waggons laden with wool but the loss of the Kadie spelled doom for Port Beaufort, for it soon sank into oblivion and is today numbered among the forgotten ports of South Africa. The loss of the Kadie also meant that many farmers who preferred to send their produce to the Cape Town market every fortnight instead of selling to Barry Nephews direct, were deprived of a quick transport. The effect on Barry & Nephews was disastrous and will be dealt with in the last chapter.

March 1864 (Kade) November 1865 (Wreck of Kadie).

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse