The Land of Waveren

At the end of the seventeenth century the Dutch colony at the Cape was growing, and it needed more land for crops and cattle.

In 1699 Governor Willem Adriaan van der Stel named the area that is now the Riebeek Valley and Tulbagh the Land of Waveren. The aims were practical: hunting grounds, farms that could supply the colony and passing ships, and a larger footprint for the settlement.

The land was divided into large farms. Settlers first received hunting and grazing licences, and soon afterwards the first farms in the valley were granted on loan.

The name Waveren has largely disappeared from everyday use, but the farms laid out in those years still shape the valley's map.