Most people in Cape Town as well as visitors from all over the World will have seen the little stone church across the road from the main gate of Kirstenbosch. Maybe, a few will have even ventured inside. It is called The Church of the Good Shepherd, Protea - Protea being the name of the farm in whose grounds the church stood.
The farm was originally granted to Jan van Riebeeck and stretched from the Liesbeeck River to Wynberg Hill. He called it “Boschheuval”, and although he built a house on it, he never lived there, for the house burnt down soon after its completion. After a couple of other owners, the farm was bought by Honoratus Maynier, and he renamed it “Protea”. Maynier’s claim to fame is that, as Landros of Graaff Rienet, he declared the area independent from the British. The independence did not last long.
When the slaves were released in 1834, they were allowed to establish a settlement on the farm as long as they continued to work for the landlord, and so Protea Village was established.
The farm was then bought by Sir Lowry Cole, the British Governor of the Cape, and in 1848, when Bishop Robert Gray arrived in the Cape, he rented the farm. In 1851, Miss Burden-Coutts, a great Victorian philanthropist, purchased the farm for the Bishop for the princely sum of 4000 pounds, and renamed it “Bishopscourt”. Bishop Gray established a school, held prayer services and exercised pastoral care for the 83 villagers. In due course, the villagers asked the Bishop if they could build a church and the Bishop gave them permission to build on the farm. The villagers built their own chapel, which Bishop Gray opened in 1864, and which in 1865 he named “The Good Shepherd”.
By 1881, the chapel was too small for the congregation, and it was decided to build a larger church 50 metres north of where the original chapel stood. The church was built with Table Mountain sandstone, and the people of the village collected the materials and provided the labour. The church was opened in 1886 by Archbishop West Jones after a great procession from Bishopscourt.
In the early 1890’s, Archbishop West Jones’ niece, Alice Allen, came to Africa as a missionary, going to work in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), but whilst there she contracted malaria and returned to Bishopscourt where she died in 1897. She was buried in the graveyard of the church, the Archbishop donating in her memory the stained glass windows installed behind the altar.
By 1903 the church building was again proving to be too small. A new north wall was built and the church was widened by two metres. If enter the church today, you will see that this has resulted in the church being asymmetrical, with the “centre” aisle off-centre.
In 1913 Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden was established and three stone cottages were built opposite the church to house members of the community who were employed as staff.
In the first half of the 20th century, the farms in the area were gradually taken over for housing, and the need for farm labour reduced. This forced the inhabitants to seek other employment, most of the men becoming fishermen and going to sea on the trawlers operating out of Table Bay.
The community’s darkest hour came in 1964. The area was declared "White" under the infamous Group Areas Act and almost overnight the community was removed to the Cape Flats, their houses torn down and their belongings trucked out with them to the new areas. There were no cell phones then, and the authorities were not exactly sympathetic, so no one warned the fisherman. When they came back from their ships, they discovered a waste land: their houses gone, their families gone and there was no indication of where they were. And their church was closed. Can you imagine what heartache they suffered?
Their faith remined strong and with the community's insistence, the church was re-opened on the last Sunday of each month for services, members travelling from all over the Cape Flats to attend the services. They took the train to Claremont and then had to walk up to the church, but in 1969 Professor Brian Rycroft of Kirstenbosch Botanic Garden offered transport to collect them from the station and, more recently a taxi service, paid for by the church, has been arranged. From 1978 services have been held each Sunday. In 2003, Revd Ian Eve, who had conducted the first service when the church was fully re-opened, returned to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of this joyous event. At this service one of the ladies taking part was 90- year-old Auntie Frances who had been involved in washing and ironing the linen and making the tea since long before the church had been closed. And these tasks are still performed by her family to this day.
The chapelry is the closest church to the home of the Archbishops (in recent times, Desmond Tutu, Njongonkulu Ndungane and Thabo Makgoba) all of whom have been known to slip into services unannounced and asked to be treated as normal parishioners.
1994 saw the end of the Group Areas legislation: after 11 long years, with the help of many other members of the congregation, in 2006 eighty-six of the families who had been removed from Protea Village were granted the land back and there is now ongoing work to decide how best to re-settle the community.
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