Did You Know?
The Police stables in Colesberg, Northern Cape, date to the mid-19th century, around 1845, when the town was a key staging post on the busy route between Cape Town and the interior. Colesberg was founded in 1830 on the farm 'Towerlands' and grew rapidly as a centre for the wool trade and as a refreshment station for wagons and horses. Stables of this era were typically simple, utilitarian structures built of local stone or clay brick, with thatched or corrugated iron roofs, designed to house horses used by the town's police or mounted constabulary. In the 1840s, the Cape Colony's police forces were still largely informal, often consisting of local field cornets and mounted patrols, so such stables would have served both official and civilian horse-keeping needs. The site reflects the practical infrastructure of a frontier town, where horses were essential for transport, policing, and communication. Today, the original 1845 stables are not a prominent tourist attraction, and little specific documentation survives about their exact construction or use, but they stand as a modest reminder of Colesberg's early colonial history and its role as a hub on the Great Northern Road.
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