Groot Constantia Trail #8: Bath Time | History (Part 3)
This is the 8th cache of an 11-cache trail which will take you around this beautiful historic vineyard passing by most of its key features along the way.
The cache, a small camo-taped tablet pot, is hidden in a secluded, shady wooded area just off the top of the minor track leading north from this old water feature.
As you proceed up the avenue from #7 the flat lawn seen above the amphitheatre is used as a helipad. A 1925 plan shows a stream running through the middle of this field. It was subsequently diverted and 1985 Ian Ford plans show furrows to the south.
At the top of the avenue is the bathing pool in an Arcadian setting with a canopy of trees and a stream running by. This oval-shaped pool northwest of the farmstead, with its sculpted figure of ‘Triton’ half man, half fish, son of Neptune was probably built at a later stage. The inferior quality of its construction in comparison with the farm’s other buildings point to this. The original ‘Triton’ was replaced with a fibreglass copy in 1985 in order to preserve the original.
Historical Time Line (Part 3: 1792 -1857)
New vines were also planted to replace the neglected ones and the VOC requested that Hendrik Cloete increase the farm’s production. By 1780 he had already planted 10,000 new vines. From 1780 Hendrik Cloete made the wine himself. Apparently his new cellar was one of the best in the Cape.
He too had to sell 2/3 of his wine to the VOC, but by 1794 he came to a better arrangement with them. After the British occupation of the Cape in 1795, he had to deliver wine to the British command at the Cape. For Hendrik Cloete, only the name of the wine monopolist had changed.
1794: Hendrik’s wife died and she was buried in the family graveyard at Groot Constantia. Hendrik Cloete left the farm to live at Nooitgedacht where he died, and his younger son, also Hendrik Cloete, took charge of GC and became the eventual new owner.
1794: Disasters strike the vineyard – just as through storms trees require strong roots, the same is true for GC. From plague to fire, the estate has faced many challenges over the years, but the values of the founder – constancy and steadfastness – have prevailed.
1795: The 1st British Occupation of the Cape.
1795: The German poet Friederich Gottlieb Klopstock composes Der Kapwein under Johannesberger, Kapwein being Constantia wine.
1799: Hendrik Cloete (junior) becomes the new owner.
1803: The Cape comes under Batavian rule.
1806: The 2nd British Occupation of the Cape.
1811: Sense and Sensibility, a novel by Jane Austen in which Constantia wine is mentioned, is published.
1815: Napoleon is banished to St Helena after his defeat of Waterloo. On St Helena he was supplied with wine from GC until his death in 1821.
1818: The wife of the late Hendrik Cloete, Anna Catharina Scheller, becomes the 2nd woman to own the estate.
1824: Scheller sells the estate to her oldest son, Jacob Pieter Cloete.
1833: Louis Phillipe (King of the French) becomes the biggest buyer ever of GC wine.
1834: Slavery is abolished, but slaves are apprenticed to their owners for a four-year period, ie up to 1838.
1855: Silver medals are awarded to GC wine at the Paris Exhibition.
1857: Les Fleurs du mal is published, a volume of poems by the French poet Charles Baudelaire, in which Sed non satiata (‘Never Satisfied’) praises Constantia wine.
