Did You Know?
The Britse skans (British sangar) near the old Britstown road outside De Aar dates to around 1900, during the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902). De Aar was a crucial railway junction on the Cape-to-Bulawayo line, and the British occupied the town in early 1900, using it as a major military base and supply depot. Sangars, or small stone defensive posts, were commonly built by British forces on kopjes (hills) to protect railway lines, water points, and communication routes from Boer commando raids. This particular sangar would have served as a lookout and firing position to guard the approach along the Britstown road, which connected De Aar to the north-west. The structure is typical of the period: a dry-stone circular or semi-circular wall, roughly waist-high, offering cover while allowing observation over the flat Karoo landscape. No major battle is recorded specifically at this sangar, but it formed part of the wider British network of blockhouses and outposts that protected the strategically vital De Aar railway hub. The site is a physical remnant of the British occupation and the guerrilla phase of the war, when Boer forces under leaders like Christiaan de Wet repeatedly cut railway lines in the region. Today, such sangars are often the only surviving traces of the extensive military infrastructure that once dotted the Karoo.
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