Very little is known about Blairgowrie and Craighall Park area before settlement by white farmers in the middle 1800s. Jean Beater makes mention of a conversation with Ms Amanda Esterhuysen, an Archaeologist at Wits University, who mentioned evidence of a Stone Age site uncovered in a donga in Craighall Park. No specific details of this site were ever recorded. She goes on to state that access to sustained water sources from the Braamfontein Spruit, as well as the topography of the area (specifically the Koppie in Craighall Park with its “360 degree views across the veld and beyond”) would have made the area a prime settlement for the original inhabitants of the Highveld.
The recorded history of the area starts with the arrival of “Boers” in the area of present day Randburg as a consequence of the Great Trek of 1838. One such early farmer was J Labuschagne who in 1860 owned the farm Boskop. On 06 June 1865, part of this farm was demarcated as the farm Klipfontein, a full 26 years before the establishment of Johannesburg in 1886. Shortly after, in 1891, William Grey Rattray purchased a section of Klipfontein and named it Craighall after his hometown in Scotland. Rattray’s portion of Klipfontein incorporated what is the present day Craighall, Craighall Park and Blairgowrie.
According to various sources, Rattray mostly farmed on his newly acquired land. Rattray also owned a portion of the farm Driefontein, sections of which later became the suburbs of Bryanbrink, Vandia Grove and Kengsington “B”. The current location of Blairgowrie was mostly used for agricultural purposes to provide Johannesburg with fresh produce.
Besides his farming business, Rattray recognised the potential of the area to offer the residents of the dusty mining town of Johannesburg an escape to the country. In those days, a journey from Johannesburg to Craighall would have taken at least an hour. William Rattray was a civil engineer and his skill is shown in the three weirs he built spanning the river. These weirs can still be seen and their great length shows how wide the river once was. He constructed a stone weir to dam the Braamfontein Spruit thus creating a lake that offered city dwellers recreational facilities such as boating, fishing and picnic spots. The lake eventually silted up in the 1930’s. Today the beautiful stone wall still stands, and water cascades over a small central section. The dam is now filled with reeds and a row of weeping willows, with the water meandering around the island that has formed. The wall is visible from the bridge in Conrad Drive.
The second weir was built about a kilometer further down the river, still intact, with water tumbling over the wall into a series of natural waterfalls. A third weir was built further down below the waterfalls.
THE CACHE:
From the parking coordinates, visit the various waypoints and gather the information to calculate the coordinates.
PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF THE VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION AND DETAILS BELOW:
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Please make sure that the container is replaced exactly where found and in the way it was placed.
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It is available 24/7 but caching at night is not recommended
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Yes - You do need to sign the logsheet. Simply spotting the hide or forgetting your pen will not count!
- BYOP
Cache coordinates are: S26 0A.BCD E028 0(W-5).XY(Z+2)