← The land

Event EVT-000241

Scheepers's men are driven out of Klaarstroom and escape onto Zeekoegat

about 1901 · local · Prince Albert

Late in the war. The kloofs of Rietfontein and Kookfontein gave commandos shelter, and an unexploded British ten-pound shell was found at Kookfontein long afterwards, disarmed, and put on display at Spykerfontein. The same ground the diggers had crawled over ten years earlier. Date approximate: SRC-068 places it 'towards the end of the Anglo-Boer War' without a year, and Scheepers was captured in October 1901. || [7 Sep 2026, SRC-172 pp.17-18] THE ESCAPE ROUTE IS NAMED, AND IT RUNS OVER THIS PROJECT'S OWN GROUND. Corp. Swanepoel and his men were cornered at Bloemendal, now Scheepersrus, with a British garrison and cannon at Prince Albert and the road to Klaarstroom and Meiringspoort blocked. The book: 'Fortunately there is a footpath from Scheepersrus over the Klein Swartberg (Witteberg) to Zeekoegat in the north. The footpath runs up the mountains, then through Boesmanspoort and Kafferskraal, and onto the plains of GROOT SLEUTELFONTEIN. From there it is easy to go through the KLEIN SLEUTELFONTEIN veld to BOTTERKRAAL where they could join the road to Zeekoegat. The advantage of this route was that the enemy could be spotted over long distances.' Groot Sluitel Fontein No. 126, Klein Sleutlefontein No. 127 and Botterkraal are farms this project already holds, and the commando crossed all three on foot. Sharrad Gilbert on the same episode: 'Their long range volleys deflected the enemy (Boers) into the rugged hill-paths to the north, through which they melted away'.

Ground it happened on

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