🏞️Signal Hill, to me, is a single point wherein different aspects of Cape Town intersect. On
the surface, historians will simply refer to Signal Hill as a space where the city placed their Noon Guns atop this hill in 1864 to be used as a firing Time Signal. To this day, the Noon Guns’ Master Clock still connects to the oldest timekeeper in the country, the South African Astronomical Observatory.
🍂The ecological history is vast, with the Post-Apartheid South African government subjecting Signal Hill to various commercial afforestation projects since 1894, planting namely pine and eucalypt tree species. Finally in 1964, Table Mountain was ‘officially’ declared a Nature Reserve, bringing an end to artificial planting of alien trees. The City of Cape Town gradually attempted to remove or reduce alien trees by cutting them down, although more investment in this area is needed. The planting of indigenous plants in the area is still underway; prioritising West Coast Renosterveld, the most threatened vegetation within the Fynbos Biome.
🧭However that is simply the Colonial story of Signal Hill, a story that boils down to a single use: Timekeeper - and we have spent the past few years healing our damaged timekeeper through indigenous forest revitalisation. The story of Signal Hill runs so much richer than that, it is coated in a plethora of different human experiences, seeping into different cultures and lived experiences.
🌍As a holy ground, Signal Hill makes up one of many points along a long stretch of Kramats, all creating a vast holy circle belonging to the prophecy of Khardi Abdusalam made 260 years ago.
🍇As land teeming with nutrient-rich soil, many town dwellers in the 16th century had small vegetable plots on the slopes of Signal Hill.
🌾As a space it provided a home for a widow in the 1730’s, where she made a living selling
milk to local townspeople. It was the farmland for Robert Schot, who was amongst the first free enslaved black people in Cape Town. During the 1700’s there were records of a Khoikhoi village having already been established there prior to Dutch Colonial arrivals.
⛰️Signal Hill Quarry was also a hotspot for thriving activity, a place where forced labour took place for certain, but also a place wherein Muslim prayer meetings took place, and where many enslaved people engaged with cockfighting as a past time.
🌅Nowadays many Capetonians and tourists alike gather at Signal Hill to take in the incredible sunset view, or to engage in paragliding or general hiking.
💬Lemme know your thoughts on this Landscape Appreciation post! I’m always keen for a discussion.
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