Page 233 - Bulletin 8 2004

230

foremost sites in Southern Africa, but unfortunately this was not to be because of the way
it had been excavated. On one occasion, for example, when they encountered a large

rock they simply blew it up. Their records proved very difficult to follow and as new
sites have been discovered archaeological interest in the cave has waned. If the Anglo-

Boer War had not happened perhaps the cave would only have been excavated much

later and with better techniques and we could have had a world-class museum at the
cave, not a little place on the corner in Fish Hoek.

The skull is now at the South African Museum but cannot be seen because of

sensitivities about displaying human remains. In 1940 a ceremony was held in the cave
formally naming it Peers Cave.

The first farmers

Farmers arrived in the valley during the early 1700s, particularly in the Noordhoek area.

Although land at Fish Hoek was being used, and whalers and fishermen were using the
beach, only in 1818 was the first permanent grant of land made, by Lord Charles

Somerset, to Andries Bruijns. In 1827 the Farm was sub-divided into three portions. Lot
A was the smallest and included the old Watch House and the whaling rights in the bay.

Lot B was the largest and included the farmhouse, named Bellevue, and the fishing rights
known as the Harring Fishery (haarders). Lot C comprised land on the north side of the

valley called Kleintuin, because of its cultivated state, that would later be named

Clovelly.

In 1883 the Fish Hoek Farm (Lots A and B) was bought by Hester Sophia de Kock, who
was not your usual Victorian lady. She was a spinster of 51 years of age and had been a

schoolteacher. She was the first to plant crops, other owners having been interested in it
for its fishing and whaling rights. She grew wheat and vegetables and she bought the