Fraserburg in the arid Karoo was formally founded in 1851. This house was probably built during the wool boom in the late 19th or early 20th century.
Being an arid region, trees were never abundant, and the street trees in the photograph are exotic eucalyptus trees. Making do in the absence of trees providing wood for building, the first settlers from the Cape moving into the region in the 1700s, nomadic farmers known as Trekboers, built corbelled houses out of stone. As stock farmers they came into conflict with the San people (also referred to as Bushmen) who were ultimately displaced and dispossessed of their land, with many San people being killed or driven away.
Tellingly, the first important European settler buildings in the town were churches (1805 and 1851), soon to be followed by a Post Office, a Magistrates Court, a police station and then a prison.
Posted by Carol