TIMES GONE BY

WHILST IT WAS WILLEM VAN DER STEL WHO NAMED THIS AREA DE NIEUWE LAND, OR NIEUWLAND WHEN HE WAS GRANTED LAND HERE IN 1700, NEWLANDS VILLAGE ACTUALLY OWES ITS FOUNDATION TO THE RIVERS, STREAMS AND SPRINGS WHICH PROVIDE A CONSTANT SUPPLY OF FRESH, CLEAN WATER.

Once known as ‘Irish Town’, the little lanes and houses of Newlands Village were once the homes of imported Irish labourers who arrived at the Cape to work at Ohlsson’s Brewery.

Pieter Visagie used this water to brew beer as early as 1658 – a year before the first wine was produced from Cape grapes. The same sources still supply the water which SA Breweries uses to brew beer here today. The historic Josephine Mill, now a National Monument, was powered by the very same water.