Tulbagh

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tulbagh is a town in the Tulbagh valley and is situated in the Witzenberg Local Municipality, near to Wolseley, Prince Alfred's Hamlet, Gouda and Ceres in the Boland (Highland) district of the Western Cape Province, South Africa.

The valley has been inhabited for thousands of years by indigenous Bushmen and Khoi peoples. It was only about 300 years ago when, after a land grant by the Dutch Colonial Government to a more or less equal number of Dutch and Huguenot settlers to settle the area, that the town of Tulbagh was founded. The town developed slowly and over time and in the period many notable examples of Cape Dutch architecture, Victorian and Edwardian houses and other buildings such as Die Oude Drosdy (the original colonial Magistrate's complex) were built in the valley. Many of these lovely buildings were destroyed in an earthquake in 1969 but quite a number did survive the catastrophe. Church Street in Tulbagh is now graced by the largest number of original Cape- Dutch, Edwardian and Victorian National Monuments in one street in South Africa and is a major tourist attraction of the town to the present day.

Tulbagh is situated in a bowl surrounded by imposing mountain ranges, with the Obiqua Mountains to the west, the Winterhoek Mountains in the north and the Witzenberg Mountains to the east. The valley experiences a mediterranean-type climate. The southern side of the valley is open to cooling south-east winds during the hot summer months. Accordingly Tulbagh enjoys some of the most diverse and attractive conditions for viticulture in the Cape, and the differences in terroir available to wine makers allow for a wide diversity of distinctive wines of excellence, attributes which have attracted many new producers to the valley.