Coetsenburg

Coetsenburg is an historic wine estate and one of the oldest estates in South Africa, established in 1682, and located at the foot of the Stellenbosch Mountain, which forms part of the estate, in the town of Stellenbosch, 31 miles (50 km) east of Cape Town, in the Cape Winelands of the Western Cape Province.

Name

The name of the estate, Coetsenburg, is an amalgamation of the Dutch words “Coetsee s’n Burg”, a colloquial form of “Coetsee en zijn Burg”. Coetsee is the surname of the estate’s founder, Dirk Coetsee, a one-time captain of the Stellenbosch schutterij (civic guard or infantry) and heemraad (alderman) of Stellenbosch. In Dutch and German, “burg” means “fortress, castle, citadel, stronghold or acropolis” (the first permanent European settlers in the area were primarily Dutch-speaking). Thus “Coetsenburg” means “Coetsee and his Fortress”. The incorrect form "Coetsenberg" refers to the Stellenbosch Mountain which is situated partly on Coetsenburg Estate. The surname Coetsee is of French Huguenot origin, originally spelt Couché. Since surnames were only recorded for taxation purposes and many officials of the Dutch East India Company were illiterate, the surname was regularly misspelled in registries and other official records and thus there are a number of variations of the surname in South Africa, e.g. Coetzee, Coetse, Coussé.Coetsenburg is often incorrectly spelt Coetzenburg.

Location

The Coetsenburg Estate lies on the banks of the Eerste River at the foot of the Stellenbosch Mountain in the town of Stellenbosch in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Stellenbosch is part of the Cape Winelands and is renowned for its viticulture, orchards and picturesque mountain scenery. Stellenbosch is the second oldest European settlement in South Africa, after Cape Town. The town became known as the City of Oaks or Eikestad in Dutch and Afrikaans due to the large number of oak trees that were planted by its founder, the Dutch Governor of the Cape Colony Simon van der Stel, to grace its streets and homesteads. One gains access to the estate via Coetsenburg Road which crosses the Eerste River over an old wagon bridge at the site of the original ford, which is known as a drift in South Africa. The estate stretches all the way up southwards from the Eerste River onto the slopes of the Stellenbosch Mountain, which is part of the Hottentots Holland range, to the Blaauwklippen River which forms its southern boundary. Westwards, the estate borders the Coetzenburg Sports Grounds of the University of Stellenbosch, Paul Roos Gymnasium and the old Welgevallen Farm (one of the farms that formed part of Rhodes Fruit Farms) which is now the suburbs of Brandwacht, Dalsig, Anesta, Eden and La Pastorale. Eastwards the estate stretches into the Jonkershoek Valley to the Hottentots-Holland Catchment Area and, to the south-east, the Assegaaibosch Nature Reserve which was once the Assegaaibosch Estate, also owned by the founder of Coetsenburg, Dirk Coetsee.

History

In the early 1680s, Simon van der Stel, the Dutch Governor of the Cape Colony, granted land to white settlers on the banks of the Eerste and Berg Rivers in and around what would become the towns of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek. The settlers were tasked with cultivating crops and raising livestock to supply ships of the Dutch East India Company as they rounded the Cape Peninsula en route to trade in the East Indies. In 1682, Simon van der Stel granted land at the foot of the Stellenbosch Mountain to the captain of the Stellenbosch Infantry and progenitor of the Coetsee family in South Africa, Dirk Coetsee, who established one of the oldest wine estates in South Africa, Coetsenburg, on the land. Coetsee built the Coetsenburg Manor House which is now a national monument not open to the public. In the same year, Van Der Stel promised land higher up in the Jonkershoek Valley to Dirk Coetsee. Coetsee named this land Assegaaibosch (due to the abundance of assegai trees; Assegaaibosch means "Assegai forest") and used it primarily for grazing. Coetsee later built the Assegaaibosch Manor House, a traditional Cape Dutch-styled house, which is now a national monument. Van der Stel also granted two other estates to Coetsee: Uiterwyk (“Outer ward”) in Bottelary in 1699, and Sonquasdrift (from “Sonqua” which means San and drift, also known as Zonquasdrif) in Tulbagh in 1714. .