HISTORICAL SYNOPSIS INTRODUCTION: STATUTORY CONTEXT “This landscape is, in a sense, now dormant. It has come from a state of incredible botanical diversity. It was first transformed by Tokai / Porter Estate is an area of high cultural heritage significance: Tokai is considered to be of national heritage significance (Grade 1) by SAHRA, within the acclaimed Constantia Winelands Cultural Landscape, and linking to Table Mountain National Park (also contemplated as a Grade 1 site), but the formal gazetting and protection is not in place. nomadic pastoralists, later by nineteenth century farmers and their slaves, and over a century ago by the government with their Tokai Manor House and part of its historical Werf, and the Arboretum, were gazetted as National Monuments in 1961 and 1985 respectively. In terms of the National Heritage resources Act (No 25 of 1999) they are forestry and reformatory farm.” now classified as Provincial Heritage Sites, and formally protected in terms of Section 27 of the NHRA; some of the other houses, offices, agricultural outbuildings within the precinct are over 60 years old and thus 2 have general protection in terms of Section 34. As the site is in excess of 5000 m and proposed interventions may change may change the character of the area, it is possible that a Heritage Impact Assessment “The challenge is to determine how further transformations are will be required in terms of Section 38 of the NHRA. to take place without entirely obliterating the marks of the past.” Aikman, Malan & Winter, 2001. OUTLINE HISTORY OF TOKAI (AND PORTER ESTATE) PRELIMINARY STATEMENT OF CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE “The evolving cultural landscape of Porter Estate” Predominantly derived from Harris 1997 and Aikman Malan Winter 2001. Preamble: Overall Context Pre-1652 Prehistorical and Pre-Colonial Period “The inherited cultural landscape of Porter Estate has escalated from gradual change over Early hunter-gatherers utilised the land’s natural resources, but left very little millennia towards much more rapid change over the last three hundred years and particularly impact on landscape. There are no known prehistorical archaeological sites over the last century. Each period left its mark in the form of paths, roads, planting patterns, within the precinct. Khoikhoi nomadic pastoralists utilised the Peninsula over drainage and irrigation furrows and structures ranging from terracing to walls to dams and some 2000 years, tending their flocks of cattle and sheep, and utilising fire to buildings. extend pastures, modify landscape. “The overall landscape is a complex composite of natural, cultivated and built landscape elements. It is a cultural landscape rather than a natural landscape; a landscape transformed by thousands of years of settlement history. … 1652 17th& 18thCentury: Dutch Colonial Period – Dutch East India Company (VOC) Plan of Porter Estate, 1947 (Aikman et al) In 1652 the Dutch East India Company/ VOC established a refreshment station “It also has narrative qualities, possessing a rich layering of physical evidence spanning in Table Valley. Constantia established by Governor Simon van der Stel by thousands of years of human occupation and more than 200 years of permanent settlement. … 1694, began planting oaks widely. This area, called “Buffelskraal”, was used as a cattle station by the VOC: the grazing was excellent. “It possesses a number of distinctive and inter-related precincts, which serve to clearly demonstrate or are strongly associated with its various historical roles and uses as a place for indigenous hunter-gatherers, grazing ground for herders, colonial cattle grazing station, colonial farm, forestry station and reformatory. Jan. 1792 Dutch Colonial Period – Private Ownership 6 Jan 1792: first freehold grant to Johan Andreas Rauch, retired VOC official. “Within each of these precincts are groupings of buildings, patterns of planting, routes and The Freehold Grant describes it as “aan de Buffelskraal”, “situated under the irrigation systems and collections of objects which have intrinsic historical, social, aesthetic and so-called Prinskasteel” (i.e. corruption of Prinseskasteel, Elephant’s Eye cave scientific significance and also contextual significance in terms of their contribution to an high on Constantiaberg ‘reputed to have been stronghold of a Hottentot understanding and appreciation of the inherited landscape qualities of Porter Estate’s history and Chiefteness’ (Mauve) associated memory.” (Aikman Malan Winter 2001: 32) Mar. 1792 14 March 1792: transferred to Andreas Georg Hendrik Teubes (after 3 months). Teubes built the fine house, carefully sited on the ridge between the Prinskasteel Historical Significance and Flagstaff streams, & wine cellar, slave quarters, stables & kraals, and planted Aerial View of Core Precinct 1883 (Harris) 70 000 vines. Buffelskraal/ Tokai/ Porter Estate have had an exceptionally rich, varied and layered developmental history, considerably different to its neighbouring estates, throughout the Dutch and English colonial periods and the 20th Century. 1799 19 November 1799: transferred to Jan Frederick Herwig The impulses that have driven periods of major development or change are associated with Referred to as Tokay for the 1st time (area in Hungary: sweet aromatic wine highly significant people: the Architect/ Engineer/ Surveyor LM Thibault who reputedly designed famous in 18th C) the exceptionally fine Manor House; The Bequest of Irish Liberal William Porter purchased the property for purposes of social reform and upliftment, and the establishment of the Porter Reformatory; Joseph Storr-Lister effectively established commercial forestry in South Africa from Tokai, which is also home of the first School of Forestry. 1800 British Colonial Period – Private Ownership th 1 November 1800: property transferred to Johan Caspar Loos. Loos died in Changes through the late 20 C have witnessed a gradual diffusion of reforming impulses, institutional processes and forestry activities, and the introduction or imposition of differing 1802, after selling Tokai. Manor House Rear Terraces, Early 20th Century (Elliott2653) environmental values. 1802 1 June 1802: Tokai was transferred to Petrus Michiel Eksteen Eksteen obtained substantial additional land grants; bankrupt January Social 1849, died soon after. Public sale of properties. The transformations of the Tokai landscape, and development of buildings and structures, may have involved Khoisan herdsmen; has encompassed considerable use of slave labour, later the 1851 2 June 1851: Transferred to relatives Sebastian Valentyn Eksteen & use of convict labour, and extensive inputs of the reformatory boys. Jacob Pieter Eksteen, who owned it until 1883. The Eksteens developed Tokai and Porter Reformatory have considerable significance for past pupils and teachers. and further transformed the landscape through much of the 19th Century. Tokai has evolved into a major metropolitan hub of recreation, for walkers, hikers, mountain- bikers, horse-riders etc, and is in the process of transformation to and development as the “Gateway to Table Mountain National Park”. Towards the end of the 19th Century many farmers in the Cape were in a state of economic ruin due to the epidemic vine disease phylloxera, which decimated the productive vineyards, as well as severe drought, labour difficulties, the removal of preferential wine exports, and widespread Environmental, Ecological economic depression. Many farms were sold or subdivided; the Cape Colonial Government bought up some. Tokai 1895 (SA Views, SA Library) The core Tokai settlement is superbly located at the base of the easterly-facing steeper slopes of the Constantiaberg, on a slight promontory between two perennial streams. The imposing formal composition of the homestead complex is enhanced by the axial approach along the tree-lined 1883 British Colonial Period – Forestry and Philanthropy avenue; the axis aligns on the peak of the towering Constantiaberg. Tokai Estate was one of the first farms procured by the Cape Government in 1883, utilising funds from the William Porter bequest. William Porter, an Irish The entire Tokai precinct has rich and varied environmental qualities and opportunities, from the liberal, had a distinguished career as Attorney General of the Cape Colony low flatlands through the core historical settlement and the immense variety of trees, forests, 1839 to 1865. Porter drew up his Will in 1878, bequeathing £20 000 for plantations and arboretum experiences. “establishment and maintenance of reformatories for young offenders sentenced by the Colonial Courts”. The Tokai precinct has high ecological bio-diversity significance in terms of the re-creation of an ecological corridor being developed to link the Constantiaberg Mountains to the Cape Flats lowlands via the rehabilitation of a corridor or bands of endemic vegetation along the Prinskasteel River. The precinct includes areas of “endangered” South Peninsula Granite Fynbos and Tokai was initially bought for the establishment of a “Lunatic Asylum” i.e. “critically endangered” Cape Flats Sand Fynbos. psychiatric hospital, proposed to house the patients transferred from Robben Island. Following strong objections from neighbouring farmers, the plan was discarded. Scientific and Technological Between 1883 and 1905 Tokai was the centre of forestry experimentation The extensive silvicultural experimentation, the establishment of the first major commercial and development. plantations in South Africa and location of the first