Objects

On 6th November 1778 Governor Joachim Baron van Plettenberg and his party after an extensive journey which took them as far as the present Colesberg arrived at this bay at which the Keurbooms and Piesangs Rivers flow into the sea and now renamed it once and for all Plettenberg Bay. Here he erected a beacon as he had done at the Seekoei River at Colesberg. The beacon having been brought here by the wagon of burgher Jacob Joubert it was planted on a high stone hill opposite the middle of the bay on the front side of this stone was carved the arms of the United Provinces and on the reverse side the monogram of the East India Company and below it the arms of the Right Honourable Lord Governor with an inscription which added that this stone was erected by the Right Honourable in this year. On 22nd July Governor Janssens who ruled the Cape during the Batavian period visited Plettenberg Bay. The beacon had fallen over but was apparently restored by him. Later the Cape Government built a little wall round it which was eventually replaced by a high railing. In 1964 the Historical Monuments Commission had the beacon removed to the South African Cultural History Museum in Cape Town for safe keeping and erected in its place a replica which is almost indistinguishable from the original.