East Fort was built by the French Pondicherry Regiment during the period when the French occupied the Cape in the period 1781-3, when Cape Town was often referred to as ‘Little Paris’. The French presence was only withdrawn following the treaty of Amiens which ended the American Revolutionary War, and the tension between France and Britain temporarily lessened.

In 1795 following the first British occupation, it was upgraded by General James Craig and permanent garrison buildings added to the existing gun battery and magazine. It has eight surviving 18 pounder cannon which have been partly restored, proofed and licensed by the Hout Bay and Llandudno Heritage Trust (HBHT) who would like to restore them to full working condition placed on replicas of the original carriages which will mean that the battery will become the oldest battery of original working guns in the world. Apart from the decaying buildings and walls the immediate views from the site remain as they were 200 years ago providing an historic cultural foreground to a magnificent backdrop of the majestic "Sentinel Peak" and the southern oceans sailed by Dias, Da Gama, Drake and many other early explorers.

See www.sahra.org.za/projects_wcape.htm

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Wednesday 19 April 2006

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Wednesday 19 April 2006

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east fort, fort, hout bay, military, ruin, South Africa, upper fort

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