Grabouw

Grabouw is a mid-sized town located in the Western Cape province of South Africa some 65 km south-east of Cape Town along the N2 highway. It is located over Sir Lowry's Pass from Somerset West in the vast Elgin Valley, which stretches between the Hottentots-Holland, Kogelberg and Groenland Mountains, with the valley floor still being substantially hilly.

Grabouw is the commercial centre for the Elgin Valley, the largest single export fruit producing area in Southern Africa. The town's population at the 2001 census was listed as 21,593.

History

The town was created on the farm "Grietjiesgat", owned by Wilhelm Langschmidt, a painter from Cape Town, who started the community around his wife's little trading store. Langschmidt named the village after the German town Grabow where he was born. It was initially spelt as "Grabau".

Later, the Molteno family began to buy land in the area - principally two brothers who eventually turned the surrounding Elgin Valley into Southern Africa's largest single export fruit producing area. They were hugely influential in developing Grabouw, for example donating the land for the town's railway station. Other significant pioneer families in the area were the Beukes family and that of the Member of Parliament Sir Antonie Viljoen. Another influential resident Edmond Lombardi created an apple-juice drink he called "Appletiser", on his nearby farm Applethwaite, and introduced it to the market in 1966.