Garden Cities and the Common

Our latest poster on the history of Meadowridge Common will be placed on one of the storyboards on the common soon. To download a PDF of it, click here.

Dr Purcell and Bergvliet Farm

Our latest poster on the history of Meadowridge Common will be placed on one of the storyboards on the common soon. To download a PDF of it, click here.
Information was gleaned from many sources, including from a chapter on Bergvliet Farmhouse in the book The Great Houses of Constantia by Philippa Dane and Sydney-Anne Wallace (Don Nelson, 1981), click here to read the chapter online.

Do we owe our existence to the Protea Atlas Project?

Almost twenty years ago, Esme Morris noticed a healthy Cape Flats Silkypuff (Diastella proteoides) shrub growing on the edge of Meadowridge Common. Recognizing it as a rare and threatened species*, she did a bit of research on the plant and alerted Tony Rebelo who was co-ordinating the impressive Protea Atlas Project that ran from 1991-2006 under the auspices of the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI).
This is the entry that appeared on the Protea Atlas website:

"Mrs Esme Morris discovered some plants of Diastella proteoides while on a walk in the Meadowridge Common. Not only did she correctly identify the plant, but she also dug out an article from the Constantiaberg Bulletin of October 1988, written by Grahame Wilson of the Constantia Captrust. It appears that in 1988 some plants of the Flats Silkypuff were protected by a few strands of barbed wire on the common off Faraday Drive and Schoolside. Today only three plants survive on the common, one of which has had a load of tar dumped on it.

"It is not easy to preserve our flora, especially when the plants are sprawling mats with flowers no bigger than a fingernail. It is only through getting the local people interested that we can conserve the indigenous flora on our commons. Perhaps we need a 'Friends of the Meadowridge Common!'" 



Luyanda Mjuleni and Esmé Morris on the Common, January 2017

"Flowers no bigger than a fingernail". The Cape Flats Silkypuff  (Diastella proteoides) on Meadowridge Common.

* Diastella proteoides is redlisted as CRITICALLY ENDANGERED in the 2017 Redlist of South African Plants. Click here to go the entry in the Redlist.

A brief history of Meadowridge Common

Bergvliet Farm Homestead

In 1685 Governor Simon van der Stel was granted a farm and grazing rights on a vast estate he called Constantia. After his death in 1712 his property was divided into two portions – Constantia and Bergvliet. In 1769, Petrus Michel Eksteen acquired the farm and built the Bergvliet homestead (above) near Die Oog. The Homestead still stands, and was proclaimed a National Monument in 1989 (now declared a Provincial Heritage Site, Grade II).

William Purcell

  In 1865, the estate was bought by William Fredrick Hertzog. Upon his death in 1902, the estate passed to his sisters Mrs S.W. Purcell and Mrs. A.M. Jeffcoat. Dr W.F. Purcell, son of the former, managed the estate on behalf of his mother and aunt between 1902 and 1919, during which period he began to survey the flora of Bergvliet. Purcell recorded and collected 595 plant species in the greater area of the Bergvliet Farm. His specimens formed the core of the South African Museum's herbarium collection but are now preserved in the Compton Herbarium at Kirstenbosch. His "list" represents 26.4% of the flora of the Cape Peninsula.

   Following the death of Dr Purcell in 1919, the Reverend W. Jeffcoat assumed stewardship of the farm on behalf of the family. In about 1930, the farm was divided again, the Jeffcoats acquiring Bergvliet, and the upper or northern portion, Kreupelbosch, going to the Purcell descendents. Today, the small natural remnants of the original farm – Die Oog Bird Sanctuary and Meadowridge Common – give us an idea of what the Bergvliet flats must have been like before their development.

   In the 1990s, Fiona Watson and Esme Morris identified several rare and endangered species of plants on Meadowridge Common including the protea Diastella proteoides and the bulb Moraea elsiae. They formed the Friends of Meadowridge Common which comprises dedicated and interested citizens whose common interest is the conservation of this small natural remnant of the original Bergvliet farm.

Extracted from “Bergvliet–Meadowridge–Diep River: Towards a local structure plan. Background report, March 2005”, prepared by Cindy Postlethwayt (Consultant: Strategic & Urban Planning), in association with Sustainable Energy Africa.

To see the chapter on Bergvliet Farmhouse in the book The Great Houses of Constantia by Philippa Dane and Sydney-Anne Wallace (Don Nelson, 1981), click here.