Van Riebeeck’s Hedge, Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, Cape Town.

These trees are a remnant of the hedge planted in 1660 by Jan van Riebeeck as a Boundary to the newly established Settlement at the Cape. Jan van Riebeeck, an employee of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), Arrived at the Cape in 1652, to set up a Refreshment Station for passing ships.

By 1659 growing problems with their Khoikhoi neighbours forced the Dutch administration at the Cape to undertake a number of defensive measures. Under Governor van Riebeeck, it determined to define a boundary to the Settlement by ploughing up a strip of land 3.6m wide and "to plant and sow bitter almonds and all kinds of quick-growing thorn bushes in the form of a land barrier so thickly that no cattle or sheep will be able to be driven through it", thus inventing the concept of a "gated community". Part of this hedge survives in the Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden, while another portions remain on the Bishopscourt Estate.  The Settlement lay in the path of traditional Khoikhoi grazing Routes and open Conflict between them broke out during 1659-60.