Boschendal

Few estates in South Africa carry the weight of history that Boschendal does. The farm's title deeds date to 1685, making it one of the oldest agricultural properties in the Cape, and its story reads like a compressed history of the Western Cape itself -- from French Huguenot refugees to British imperialism, from fruit empires to one of the country's most ambitious modern agricultural revival projects.

The first owner of the land was Jean le Long, a Huguenot who arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1688 as part of a group of some 200 French Protestant refugees fleeing religious persecution in Europe. The Dutch East India Company granted him the farm, and for the next century it would pass through the hands of settlers building a new life in an unfamiliar landscape. In 1715, Abraham de Villiers -- another Huguenot -- acquired Boschendal, and the De Villiers family would farm it continuously until 1879, a remarkable 164-year tenure that saw the construction of the iconic Manor House in 1812. That neoclassical Cape Dutch homestead, with its ornamental gable and H-plan layout, still stands today as a National Monument and the visual centrepiece of the estate.

In 1887, Cecil John Rhodes purchased Boschendal and folded it into his commercial fruit-farming operation, Rhodes Fruit Farms, following advice from the Californian horticulturist Harry Pickstone. The estate's fertile soils and favourable climate proved ideal for deciduous fruit, and for decades Boschendal was as much an orchard as a vineyard. The Anglo American Corporation took control in the late 1960s, before a 2003 sale to an international consortium. The most significant modern chapter began in 2012, when a group of South African investors acquired the property and launched an intensive rejuvenation programme -- restoring the historic Manor House, replanting vineyards, and transforming Boschendal into a working farm that produces everything from wine and charcuterie to vegetables, honey, and Black Angus beef.

Today Boschendal's guiding vision is to be a pioneering and ethical village -- a place where nature flourishes, communities prosper, and every moment is an invitation to pause, breathe, and reconnect. The estate describes its mission as 'regenerating our future through people and soil,' dedicated to empowering people and restoring soil health across its expansive 1,900-hectare property.