On From Grahamstown - 255km

A small swivel cannon was mounted on the open observation area at the top of the tower. In the old officers’ quarters, which date back to 1839, are maps, documents, photographs and equipment relating to the history of the area. Fort Beaufort was at the centre of the War of the Axe, which started when an axe was stolen from a shop in the town in March 1846. The Victorian Bridge was built in about 1840.

FORT BROWN

...was established in 1817 as a military post along the Fish River as part of Lord Charles Somerset’s plan to protect the frontier of the Cape Colony. On the instructions of Sir Benjamin D’Urban, Somerset’s successor, the fort was converted in 1835 into one of the largest strongholds along the Fish River. A high stone wall enclosed the living quarters and stables, and in one corner a 3,5-m-high gun tower was built.

A stone stairway in the gun tower led up to a room with loopholes to fire from, while a three-pounder mountain gun, which could be swivelled, was mounted on the roof. The powder magazine was built underneath the floor of the gun tower. The fort was manned until 1861, and was later used as a police post.

QUEEN’S ROAD

This was the first of many roads built by Andrew Geddes Bain after he was appointed to build roads in the eastern border areas in 1837. Linking Grahamstown to Fort Beaufort and Balfour, the road was completed around 1842 and was named after Queen Victoria, who ascended the throne in 1837. Bain was the road engineer, while the construction was supervised by Major Charles Selwyn of the Royal Engineers.

ECCA PASS

The heights about 15 km north of Grahamstown were the most challenging obstacle faced by Andrew Geddes Bain when he built the Queen’s Road. Bain named the heights and the pass after the Ecca River – a tributary of the Fish – whose Khoikhoi name is said to mean ‘salty’ or ‘brackish river’. As well as being a brilliant road engineer, Bain was also a keen geologist.

While building the Queen’s Road, he studied the composition of the rock formations along the route and named the 225–270-million-year-old sedimentary blue shales and mudstones at the foot of the pass the Ecca Group. A monument at the summit of the pass honours this great road engineer, whose many achievements include Michell’s Pass near Ceres, Bain’s Kloof Pass over the Klein Drakenstein Mountains near Wellington and the Katberg Pass.