Vlysbank: the staging post

Vlysbank, also written Vleesbank or Vleisbank, was one of the first four farms in the valley. It was granted in 1704 to Hendrik Venter, a tailor by trade who had to learn farming here.

The name is loosely translated as a staging post. The farm worked as a holding and trading station for cattle, many of them destined for ships calling at Cape Town.

In 1713 smallpox reached the Cape. Hendrik Venter died at the age of 49, and his wife Anna Viljoen died nine days later. Their children were sent back to the Viljoen family in Stellenbosch, and the farm passed to Nicolaas Gockelius, a soldier of the Dutch East India Company. In 1821 it went to Mattheijs Michielse Laubscher.

A memorial stone for Hendrik and Anna stands in the old cemetery of the Dutch Reformed Church in Riebeek Kasteel. The farm lies along the R46, by Du Vlei.