FIVE
INSTITUTIONS AT THE CAPE
1. Fort de Goede Hoop in Tafelbaij
2. The VOC Caep Siekenhuijs
3. The Compagnie Tuin
4. Die Kerk
5. The Slave Lodge
KERK
compiled by AM van Rensburg
van
Staden drawing 1710 Church and tower
At first there was no church building at the Cape. Ministers
either sailing to or from Batavia performed services in the
hall of the fort (1665). In the new castle, services were held
in the hall of the Governor. Later a wooden building near the
Buuren bastion was used. This hall was full of graves by 1677.
A
new site was chosen on the 9 April 1678 and the foundation
stones were laid. From this time they started to use the
cemetery around the proposed new church site. All those
who were buried at the fort were reburied at the new site
in a common grave. The church was not built for a long time
and by the time building proceeded the foundations were
to small and they started from scratch. "The Dutch Reformed
Church (Groote Kerk), Adderley Street, begun in 1699, is
the oldest and largest Dutch Reformed church in South Africa.
It was only completed in 1704. The minister Peter Kalden
put an inscription above the door facing the hospital:
Aegrotis
solamen ego, fessisque levemane
Fandsque salutiferos suppoditans fluvious
Si moio laete hos rivos afflictus adibit
Non tantum incolumis sed satiatus erit
It
was demolished in 1836 and then largely rebuilt. Little of the
first structure remains. Its fine carved pulpit is the work
of Anton Anreith. The tower contains a chiming clock installed
in 1727, however this clock never showed the time until 1771.
Beneath the floor lie the remains of Simon van der Stel and
other notabilities. "
van
Staden drawing 1710, church with tower is towards the right
side
Drawing of Church
Photo of church tower, which
is the only remainder of the original church from 1704
Bibliography
C.
Pama, Vintage Cape Town, (Tafelberg, 1973)
'South
African Heritage. From Van Riebeeck to Nineteenth-Century
Times', (Human & Rosseau, 1965)
PW Laidler, A Tavern of the Ocean
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