Settlement Patterns & Built Environment OVERVIEW

The settlement patterns reflect the various uses of the Island and development in general as access to all parts of the Island became possible. Most settlement happened on the eastern side of the Island.

1600'S

1654 - 1672

The beach at Murray’s Bay was the initial landing place on the Island. During the Dutch colonial period, settlement on the Island was adjacent to this beach in the central portion and northwards. An early recorded human settlement on the Island was a shed built by 4 to 5 men sent to the Island in March 1654 to look after the sheep and maintain a vegetable garden. Residential development during the British colonial period and after was almost exclusively to the southeast. This is where the village stands today. By 1672, the Island had buildings to accommodate slaves and soldiers, gardens, a lime-burner and a flag flying from the signal hill which is now called Minto’s Hill.

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1700'S

1754 - 1777

By 1777, the settlement had grown to include the Postholder’s house, long low buildings next to it for convicts and utility buildings such as a smithy on the right.The kramat, a muslim religious shrine, was built on the west side in honour of Prince Pangerau Chakra Deningrat of Madura who died on the Island in 1754.

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1800'S

1806 - 1864

A new settlement was built in 1806-8 at the southern end of the Island to accommodate the British prison. By 1833 this settlement included a large house for the Commandant, soldiers barracks, oversees’ houses, a bakery, butchery, smithy, workshops and prison accommodation for about 200 prisoners. A doctor’s residence and parsonage were added in the early 1840s.

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1900'S

1900 - 1983

On the northern end of the village is Boundary Road which separated staff and patients of the Infirmary and those with leprosy. People with leprosy were housed north of the village. All prison structures built after 1900 were built to the north of this line. A 1931 plan of Robben Island indicates that at the time, there are about 170 buildings and structures on it. About 90 of these structures were leper compounds that were due for demolition for fear of contamination of the disease. The Church of the Good Shepherd was refurbished and re-consecrated as the Naval Church in 1942, during WW2. Other buildings constructed during the WW2 period were artillery batteries, rifle posts and other buildings were constructed in previously unoccupied areas of the Island.

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2000'S

2000 - NOW

None of the buildings from the Dutch period are intact today although there are a few visible remains close to the eastern shoreline and in the northern garden area. The Church of the Good Shepherd is the only remaining building of the Leprosaria period and the WW2 structures are in various states of disrepair. Most of the East Coast remains undeveloped. A perimeter road encircles the whole Island and there are link roads between various sections of the Island.

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SHIPWRECKS

1611 - NOW

Although not part of the Island’s built environment in its strictest sense, there are still some shipwrecks that can be seen on its coastline and form part of its cultural and historical landscape. The Island, being a submerged mountain linked to the Cape mainland by an underground saddle made its coastline inhospitable because of the submerged rocks that lie around it.

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Settlement Patterns & Built Environment OVERVIEW

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