Plaat Fontein (Varsche Fontein No. 27 Ptn 3)

3/27 on the cadastre · on record 1923 · show on the map

The farm's own history, the grant, the original survey, sits on that page.

Farm number: No. 27
Portion: 3
Also recorded as: Plaat Fonteinthis project, from the diagramsPlatfonteinSRC-436, 2023 valuation roll
On the cadastre: 3/27, portionregistered as VARSCHE FONTEIN
District: Prince Albert
Extent, as the diagram states it: 2100 morgen 25 sq roods
Modern surveyed area: 1786.2 ha

The historic extent and the modern surveyed area are two separate measurements and are not presented here as confirming each other. The first is what a surveyor wrote on a diagram, usually in morgen. The second is what the modern cadastre draws.

Why this farm is here

J.W. van Zyl (?) held it, and no kinship to the Oosthuizen, Marincowitz or Van der Merwe lines is recorded, this ground entered through the land, not the family. 65 km from Klaarstroom.

parcel Cut out of Varsche Fontein
border Shares a boundary with Lot A (Varsche Fontein No. 27 Ptn 1) Lot A (Varsche Fontein No. 27 Ptn 1)
border Shares a boundary with Groot Rivier (Varsche Fontein No. 27 Ptn 2) Groot Rivier (Varsche Fontein No. 27 Ptn 2)
border Shares a boundary with Varsche Fontein No. 27 Remainder Varsche Fontein No. 27 Remainder
…and 2 more, listed in full further down this page.

What the record holds, in order

1923 boundary change subdivision: from Varsche Fontein
January 1923 document SG diagram A191/1923
2267/1923
23 January 1923 document surveyor report A191/1923
27 March 1923 ownership J.W. van Zyl (?)
transfer · confidence medium

Bordered by, as the diagram names them

NE Klein Knoffels Fontein
SE Varsche Fontein Remainder
S Groot Rivier
NW Lot A
NW Jan Willems Fontein

Also bordered by, as the modern cadastre draws it

Ground that touches this farm on the Surveyor-General's current polygons and that none of the diagrams held here names. Derived from the geometry, not read off a document.

S Varsche Fontein
W Abrahams Kraal

Documents

Scan of Surveyor-General diagram, A191/1923, January 1923

Surveyor-General diagram, A191/1923, January 1923
10777802 (1).PDF

Scan of Surveyor's report, A191/1923, 23 January 1923

Surveyor's report, A191/1923, 23 January 1923
10777808 (1).PDF

Cadastre

Surveyor-General diagram index for this parcel

Surveyor-General diagram index for the whole farm — where the original survey of this ground sits.

Research notes

SG Dgm A191/1923; deed 1923-43-2267

[13 Aug 2026] Renamed to the one form this model uses for every portion - the portion's own name, then the parent farm, its number and the portion in brackets - so that a name is legible in a list, a search result and a map popup without the reader having to know which farm number is which. It read "Plaat Fontein (Varsche Fontein Ptn 3)" before. Nothing about the ground changed.

The research behind this page, kept separate from it: dated working notes, open questions, and what is not yet settled.

Open questions

Morgen or hectares? extent_text may be inconsistent priority 1 · LEAD-0007
Are the figures in parcels.extent_text really morgen, or are some of them hectares mislabelled as morgen?

What would settle it Reading the figure and its unit directly off the diagrams for the nine flagged parcels.
Substituting Diagram 2014/1921 cancelled the 1834 grant of Jan Willems Fontein, and the farm grew by a quarter priority 2 · LEAD-0146
S.G. Dgm 354/1834 gives Jan Willems Fontein No. 32 as 7,059 morgen, about 6,046 ha. The modern whole-farm polygon is 7,703.6 ha. The 1834 sheet is stamped CANCELLED, vide Subst. Dgm 2014/1921, D/T 1922-50-2887. What did the 1921 resurvey do, and where did the extra ground come from?

What would settle it Diagram 2014/1921, which will state the resurveyed extent and name what was taken in.

What the record is missing

The record stops in 1923 and never resumes second order · B2 trail-ends
Plaat Fontein (Varsche Fontein No. 27 Ptn 3) was worked as far as 1923-03-27, with J.W. van ZylH (?) the last owner on record. 103 years follow with nothing. Who held it after that, and is it still one farm?

What would settle it The current title deed traced backwards, each transfer names the one before it, or the Surveyor-General's subdivision diagrams, which are what usually explain a farm going quiet.
“Klein Knoffels Fontein” is named as a neighbour 3 times and we hold no parcel for it second order · B3 unheld-farm
3 separate surveys in this model put Klein Knoffels Fontein on the boundary of ground we do hold (PAR-000002, PAR-000017). It has no parcel of its own here, so nothing is known about who held it or when, while it borders farms at the centre of the project.

What would settle it The Surveyor-General's farm index for the registration division will give it a farm number and a diagram; the cadastre pull in `data/fetch_cadastre.py` then places it on the map.

Found by breaks.py reading the model against itself, not written by hand, each one is a shape of missing record, not a fault in the data. The whole set is on the questions page.