Activity Description

Explore the “village of the oaks" with its shady oak avenues bordered by the water furrows of the Mill Stream. Admire the charm and harmony of the Cape Dutch Architecture and listen to tales about the colorful inhabitants of three centuries.

Discover where Simon van der Stel set up camp in the Eerste River and why it is called the Eerste River. Perhaps you will meet an angel at the “Angel Factory” or a ghost in the graveyard of the ”Moederkerk”.

Three fires destroyed the village. Where did the fire of 1710 start and who started it? The first Christian Church building in South Africa was in Stellenbosch not in Cape Town. Today it is the site of the oldest hotel in South Africa, d’Ouwe Werf and not all the graves have been moved!

Dorp Street, “the wagon way to Cape Town” is the oldest residential street in South Africa today. It is still the wagon way to Cape Town, only the wagons have changed somewhat!

Historical buildings surround three sides of The Braak (village green) During the 1809 and 1811 earth tremor, people rushed out of their houses onto the Braak. The Braak was already proclaimed by Simon van der Stel, the eleventh governor, as an open space for the people and as a military parade ground.

Stellenbosch University has produced many famous South Africans – Prime Ministers and Sportsmen. Rugby and cricket was played on the Braak. Stellenbosch, synonymous with rugby, but the first Stellenbosch Springbok – Nico Theunissen – was a cricketer.

In 1602 the VOC was established by the Here Sewentien. Four hundred years later the “Kruithuis” on the Braak proudly flies the flag of the VOC.

Rhenish Institute, the oldest girl’s boarding school in South Africa celebrated 150 years in 2010. Rhenish was the first school to teach Domestic Science and Needlework.

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