| DURBAN SOUTH AFRICA |
| THE ISI'BUBULUNGU COAST HISTORY |
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BLUFF HEADLAND HERITAGE PARK
1. THE BLUFF HEADLAND: ITS SPECIAL SIGNIFICANCE
As one of the main enclosing elements of the Bay of Natal, the Bluff Headland has extraordinary geographical,
environmental and historical significance. As a regional landmark it is visible from great distances, both inland
and from the sea and it must have provided early peoples with an easily recognised reference.
For the past 150 years it has been dominated by navigational and military usage. Fortunately, the latter
‘fortress’ use has allowed most of the discreet ecological systems to survive. It also provides a long green
backdrop to the city centre and is thus one of the major components of the Durban open space system. With
water on three sides it also has the qualities of an island.
On the Bay side the Bluff provided opportunities for the extension of port facilities and its original shoreline was
changed a hundred years ago with reclamation works and quays for specialist cargoes.
However, since the end of the 19th century it has also become the backyard of the city where a number of
‘unclean’ functions could be hidden away. These included the quarantine and whaling stations, dynamite
magazines and more recently a large sewerage treatment works.
The headland, with its characteristic profile dipping down into the ocean is a powerful visual image of special
significance to the city of Durban.
ISIBUBULUNGU AND BLUFF
The traditional Zulu name for the Bluff is Isibubulungu. There are two possible meanings: The first that it is a
long round-shaped ridge; and the second is ‘the white man’s Bluff’ - a reference to the fact that it became the
first refuge for the sojourn of white shipwreck survivors. Both are apt. The English word ‘Bluff’ means a
‘headland or cliff with perpendicular face’.
2. THE GEOLOGY OF THE BLUFF
In the words of Lester King, one of the authors of the Gondwanaland theory: ‘Along the whole length of the Natal
coast there is but a single departure from the normal straight condition, the Bluff at Durban, which projects
beyond the usual line of the coast’.
The Bluff ridge is a surviving remnant of an extensive coastal dune system which formed along the shoreline of
Natal between 2 and
5 million years ago. The southern end of the system occurs in the Aliwal Shoal. At that time the Natal shoreline
was about 120 meters below its present level and at the edge of the continental shelf about 15km seaward. At
the end of the last ‘ice age’, between 10 000 and 18 000 years ago the sea level rose to about its present
position.
The peninsular form of the Bluff and the reason why the dune system stopped there are primarily the result of
river and marine erosion. On the landward side extensions were eroded by the Mhlatuzana and Mgeni Rivers
where they ran into a very large tidal lagoon. The original courses of these rivers were submerged. The Bluff
channel probably survives as a remnant of the Mhlatuzana. Seaward extensions were removed over time by the
erosion of marine wave and wind. At the end of the Bluff one can still observe that this process continues and
the rocky scarp shows an eroded and weather- worn cliff of yellow calcareous sandstones. This was the stone
which John Milne quarried and ferried across the
harbour entrance channel for the building of the North Pier in 1849.
STRANDED BEACH DEPOSIT
Near Cave Rock and towards Reunion Rocks remnants of ‘stranded beach deposits’ are visible in the side of
the Bluff as evidence of the way sea levels rose during the last ‘ice-age’ to about 6 meters above its present
level. The contents of these raised beaches are chiefly oysters and other mollusca. In 1904 Anderson the Natal
Government geologist observed that: The remnants of this beach have, however, another and very important
significance.....the occurrence of coal-bearing strata under the Bluff.
COAL MINING
In a preliminary report of 1901 on the possibilities of obtaining payable coal under the Bluff, Anderson observed
that it was possible that thin coal-seams existed below the calcareous sandstones of the Bluff but noted that the
question of payable coal was very problematical and not of an encouraging nature. The Government put down
an exploratory borehole to a depth of 1000 meters and verified his findings.
3. THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE BLUFF
Our earliest evidence of human settlement on the Bluff derives from limited archaeological work and the records
of survivors of shipwrecks in the vicinity of the Bay of Natal and along the coast.
IRON AGE SETTLEMENTS
There has been no systematic archaeological study of Iron Age settlements in the Durban area, but various
sites have been found by amateurs and by chance. They indicate that Iron Age agriculturists were living in the
vicinity of the Bay of Natal for much of the last 1600 years. At least two iron production sites have been
identified in the southern part of the Bluff and it is therefore not unlikely that the iron workers would have used
the woodlands of the Bluff to obtain hard timber from the Olea woodii and Acacia caffra for their charcoal.
UMNINI AND THE AMAMPOFANA
Sometime during the 18th century the Ntuli sought refuge on the Bluff under their chief Amatubane and in the
process forcefully removed the previous occupants the Amampofana. At the time of the first arrival of the white
people, whom they called Abalumbi, their chief was Umnini; his clans had taken over the fishkraals and fishing
traditions of their predecessors. The devastating impact of the Mfecane under Chaka in the early part of the
19th century led to a widespread and local displacement of peoples throughout Southern Africa. Accounts
indicate that at the time Umnini’s people were driven to hide their settlements and crops under the Bluff bush.
Some sought even safer refuge at the very end of the Bluff on the beaches under the headland. In 1852 the
Ntuli were moved further south to the Illovu River by the Natal Colonial Government.
EARLY SHIPWRECK SURVIVORS
On the 16th of February 1686 the Dutch East India Company’s ship the Stavenisse was wrecked 110 km south
of the Bay. Some of the survivors met up with a party of Englishmen who had been wrecked in their vessel the
Good Hope on the 17th of May 1685 while entering the Bay of Natal.
THE CENTAURUS
The combined party settled on the Bluff where they built a small vessel from the remains of the Good Hope and
local timbers such as milkwoods. The work was led by John Kingston, a carpenter, who achieved this task
without a saw. They lived in a small timber house on the shores of the Bluff facing the Bay. Early in 1687 they
were joined by another party of shipwrecked men from the Bona Ventura which had been lost at St Lucia. The
boat was named the Centaurus and sailed for the Cape on the 17th of February 1687, reaching Cape Town on
1st of March where it was purchased by Simon Van Der Stel.
ENGELSCHE LOGIE
Some 2 years later the Dutch East India Company ship, the Noord arrived at the Bay to investigate the country
and chart the Bay. Their craft was warped along the Bluff channel by local inhabitants. The little house on
Engelsche logie (Englishman’s lodge) was still there and they used it as a navigational beacon when departing
the Bay on January 23rd 1689.
KING, FAREWELL AND FYNN:
The SALISBURY and the ELIZABETH AND SUSAN
Francis Farewell, Henry Fynn and Lieutenant King arrived in the brig Salisbury in 1824 to establish a
commercial station at Port Natal and to chart the Bay. In a later voyage in the Mary they arrived on October 1st
1825 and were wrecked on the bar. King and Isaacs ‘squatted’ on the Bluff at a place they called Townsend
dockyard where they constructed a vessel from the remains of the Mary. This was called the Elizabeth and
Susan and was launched in 1828. King died the same year and was buried at a place on the Bluff now called
King’s Rest.
4. EARLY FORTIFICATIONS
Early Europeans found the Bluff useful for military purposes as a secondary fortress to the defence positions at
the Point and the main camp (Old Fort). The Boers are reputed to have hauled 4lb guns to the top of the Bluff;
they had captured these from the British garrison at the Point in 1842 following the Battle of Congella.
BRITISH ORDINANCE LAND
Lieut. Charles Gibb of the Royal Engineers recommended the use of the Bluff for military purposes in 1843: ...as
it not only commands the Outer Anchorage, the Roadstead, the Bar, the Entrance to the Bay, the Sandy Point,
and the greatest part of the Bay but heavy guns and mortars would range to the Camp and command a great
part of the flat of the Itafa Amalinde and the present site of the village.
Suitable materials were available on the site: stone, shells for lime, red clay and abundant timber. The steep
ascent would make it impossible for an enemy to ascend. A battery with three guns and two mortars could be
built at the extreme point with palisading and barracks inside sunk into the ground. For these reasons the Bluff
became reserved in 1846 as Ordinance land for the specific use of the military.
TWO GUN BATTERY
However it would only be 44 years later that such a battery would actually be constructed. In the 1880's a
serious diplomatic crisis developed between Britain and Russia over the latter’s Asian expansions. The Colonial
Office, expecting attacks on British Colonies from Russian warships, hastily facilitated fortification of the
Colonies.
Thus came into being Two Gun Battery. By 1887 work had commenced and 6 inch breech loading guns
ordered. The battery was designed by Major Rathbone of the Royal Engineers and incorporated two gun
emplacements and magazines for shells and cartridges. Together with the Back Beach Gun Battery (built in
1892) the guns could range some 6000 yards (5.9km). In 1894 the fortifications were added to with the
construction of a master-gunner’s house near the lighthouse.
LIGHTHOUSE BATTERY
The guns were never used against an enemy and were integrated into the defence system for Durban
developed during the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). In 1904 they were upgraded and new mobile Naval guns
hauled up a specially constructed narrow-guage rail. This rail ran along the old pathway which still exists on the
north west of the Bluff. Two Gun Battery survives buried under the layers of later constructions and by WW2
became known as Lighthouse Battery. During WW1 this battery was amplified with another built on slightly
higher ground to the South. Bluff Battery (1916) was a specific project of the Royal Navy and the Royal Natal
Naval Volunteers (RNNV). Two more modern quick-firing 6 inch guns were sited in front of a four roomed
underground magazine and these were to serve as defences until well into WW2. The RNNV had traditionally
used the Bluff during the nineteenth century for their annual camps under their enthusiastic originator and
commander, Harry Escombe.
5. WORLD WAR 2
South Africa entered the war in an extremely under-prepared state: there was bias towards the Air Force at the
expense of other sectors; and the forces were a confused tangle of disconnected units. Throughout the war this
was reflected in Durban’s war defences with effective control being diluted through a myriad of different units.
BLUFF FORTRESS
Durban entered the war with the 6 inch quick-firing guns of Bluff Battery; they were added to with two mobile 6
inch guns on Arrol platforms located between Two Gun Battery and the lighthouse. Thus began the process
which transformed the Bluff into Bluff Fortress. Durban was to take on an important role as a southern
hemisphere port for the servicing and refreshment of millions of service men and women and almost two
hundred thousand ships in large numbers of security convoys. John Craig, a former Harbour Advisory Engineer
headed the Fortifications and Coastal Works Section of the Defence Force. Lt. W. Wright was appointed to
begin a series of defensive works around Durban at the
centre of which was the Bluff and the harbour entrance channel.
BLOCK SHIPS
An early concern for the safety and efficiency of the port was the threat of enemy ships scuttling themselves
inside the harbour entrance thereby blocking the port. This looked likely when two Italian merchant ships, the
Timavo and the Gerusalleme left the harbour immediately before Italy entered the war on 9th June 1940. All the
Bluff guns were prepared for action but the ships left without aggression on route to Lourenco Marques
(Maputo).
1. THE BLUFF HEADLAND: ITS SPECIAL SIGNIFICANCE
As one of the main enclosing elements of the Bay of Natal, the Bluff Headland has extraordinary geographical,
environmental and historical significance. As a regional landmark it is visible from great distances, both inland
and from the sea and it must have provided early peoples with an easily recognised reference.
For the past 150 years it has been dominated by navigational and military usage. Fortunately, the latter
‘fortress’ use has allowed most of the discreet ecological systems to survive. It also provides a long green
backdrop to the city centre and is thus one of the major components of the Durban open space system. With
water on three sides it also has the qualities of an island.
On the Bay side the Bluff provided opportunities for the extension of port facilities and its original shoreline was
changed a hundred years ago with reclamation works and quays for specialist cargoes.
However, since the end of the 19th century it has also become the backyard of the city where a number of
‘unclean’ functions could be hidden away. These included the quarantine and whaling stations, dynamite
magazines and more recently a large sewerage treatment works.
The headland, with its characteristic profile dipping down into the ocean is a powerful visual image of special
significance to the city of Durban.
ISIBUBULUNGU AND BLUFF
The traditional Zulu name for the Bluff is Isibubulungu. There are two possible meanings: The first that it is a
long round-shaped ridge; and the second is ‘the white man’s Bluff’ - a reference to the fact that it became the
first refuge for the sojourn of white shipwreck survivors. Both are apt. The English word ‘Bluff’ means a
‘headland or cliff with perpendicular face’.
2. THE GEOLOGY OF THE BLUFF
In the words of Lester King, one of the authors of the Gondwanaland theory: ‘Along the whole length of the Natal
coast there is but a single departure from the normal straight condition, the Bluff at Durban, which projects
beyond the usual line of the coast’.
The Bluff ridge is a surviving remnant of an extensive coastal dune system which formed along the shoreline of
Natal between 2 and
5 million years ago. The southern end of the system occurs in the Aliwal Shoal. At that time the Natal shoreline
was about 120 meters below its present level and at the edge of the continental shelf about 15km seaward. At
the end of the last ‘ice age’, between 10 000 and 18 000 years ago the sea level rose to about its present
position.
The peninsular form of the Bluff and the reason why the dune system stopped there are primarily the result of
river and marine erosion. On the landward side extensions were eroded by the Mhlatuzana and Mgeni Rivers
where they ran into a very large tidal lagoon. The original courses of these rivers were submerged. The Bluff
channel probably survives as a remnant of the Mhlatuzana. Seaward extensions were removed over time by the
erosion of marine wave and wind. At the end of the Bluff one can still observe that this process continues and
the rocky scarp shows an eroded and weather- worn cliff of yellow calcareous sandstones. This was the stone
which John Milne quarried and ferried across the
harbour entrance channel for the building of the North Pier in 1849.
STRANDED BEACH DEPOSIT
Near Cave Rock and towards Reunion Rocks remnants of ‘stranded beach deposits’ are visible in the side of
the Bluff as evidence of the way sea levels rose during the last ‘ice-age’ to about 6 meters above its present
level. The contents of these raised beaches are chiefly oysters and other mollusca. In 1904 Anderson the Natal
Government geologist observed that: The remnants of this beach have, however, another and very important
significance.....the occurrence of coal-bearing strata under the Bluff.
COAL MINING
In a preliminary report of 1901 on the possibilities of obtaining payable coal under the Bluff, Anderson observed
that it was possible that thin coal-seams existed below the calcareous sandstones of the Bluff but noted that the
question of payable coal was very problematical and not of an encouraging nature. The Government put down
an exploratory borehole to a depth of 1000 meters and verified his findings.
3. THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE BLUFF
Our earliest evidence of human settlement on the Bluff derives from limited archaeological work and the records
of survivors of shipwrecks in the vicinity of the Bay of Natal and along the coast.
IRON AGE SETTLEMENTS
There has been no systematic archaeological study of Iron Age settlements in the Durban area, but various
sites have been found by amateurs and by chance. They indicate that Iron Age agriculturists were living in the
vicinity of the Bay of Natal for much of the last 1600 years. At least two iron production sites have been
identified in the southern part of the Bluff and it is therefore not unlikely that the iron workers would have used
the woodlands of the Bluff to obtain hard timber from the Olea woodii and Acacia caffra for their charcoal.
UMNINI AND THE AMAMPOFANA
Sometime during the 18th century the Ntuli sought refuge on the Bluff under their chief Amatubane and in the
process forcefully removed the previous occupants the Amampofana. At the time of the first arrival of the white
people, whom they called Abalumbi, their chief was Umnini; his clans had taken over the fishkraals and fishing
traditions of their predecessors. The devastating impact of the Mfecane under Chaka in the early part of the
19th century led to a widespread and local displacement of peoples throughout Southern Africa. Accounts
indicate that at the time Umnini’s people were driven to hide their settlements and crops under the Bluff bush.
Some sought even safer refuge at the very end of the Bluff on the beaches under the headland. In 1852 the
Ntuli were moved further south to the Illovu River by the Natal Colonial Government.
EARLY SHIPWRECK SURVIVORS
On the 16th of February 1686 the Dutch East India Company’s ship the Stavenisse was wrecked 110 km south
of the Bay. Some of the survivors met up with a party of Englishmen who had been wrecked in their vessel the
Good Hope on the 17th of May 1685 while entering the Bay of Natal.
THE CENTAURUS
The combined party settled on the Bluff where they built a small vessel from the remains of the Good Hope and
local timbers such as milkwoods. The work was led by John Kingston, a carpenter, who achieved this task
without a saw. They lived in a small timber house on the shores of the Bluff facing the Bay. Early in 1687 they
were joined by another party of shipwrecked men from the Bona Ventura which had been lost at St Lucia. The
boat was named the Centaurus and sailed for the Cape on the 17th of February 1687, reaching Cape Town on
1st of March where it was purchased by Simon Van Der Stel.
ENGELSCHE LOGIE
Some 2 years later the Dutch East India Company ship, the Noord arrived at the Bay to investigate the country
and chart the Bay. Their craft was warped along the Bluff channel by local inhabitants. The little house on
Engelsche logie (Englishman’s lodge) was still there and they used it as a navigational beacon when departing
the Bay on January 23rd 1689.
KING, FAREWELL AND FYNN:
The SALISBURY and the ELIZABETH AND SUSAN
Francis Farewell, Henry Fynn and Lieutenant King arrived in the brig Salisbury in 1824 to establish a
commercial station at Port Natal and to chart the Bay. In a later voyage in the Mary they arrived on October 1st
1825 and were wrecked on the bar. King and Isaacs ‘squatted’ on the Bluff at a place they called Townsend
dockyard where they constructed a vessel from the remains of the Mary. This was called the Elizabeth and
Susan and was launched in 1828. King died the same year and was buried at a place on the Bluff now called
King’s Rest.
4. EARLY FORTIFICATIONS
Early Europeans found the Bluff useful for military purposes as a secondary fortress to the defence positions at
the Point and the main camp (Old Fort). The Boers are reputed to have hauled 4lb guns to the top of the Bluff;
they had captured these from the British garrison at the Point in 1842 following the Battle of Congella.
BRITISH ORDINANCE LAND
Lieut. Charles Gibb of the Royal Engineers recommended the use of the Bluff for military purposes in 1843: ...as
it not only commands the Outer Anchorage, the Roadstead, the Bar, the Entrance to the Bay, the Sandy Point,
and the greatest part of the Bay but heavy guns and mortars would range to the Camp and command a great
part of the flat of the Itafa Amalinde and the present site of the village.
Suitable materials were available on the site: stone, shells for lime, red clay and abundant timber. The steep
ascent would make it impossible for an enemy to ascend. A battery with three guns and two mortars could be
built at the extreme point with palisading and barracks inside sunk into the ground. For these reasons the Bluff
became reserved in 1846 as Ordinance land for the specific use of the military.
TWO GUN BATTERY
However it would only be 44 years later that such a battery would actually be constructed. In the 1880's a
serious diplomatic crisis developed between Britain and Russia over the latter’s Asian expansions. The Colonial
Office, expecting attacks on British Colonies from Russian warships, hastily facilitated fortification of the
Colonies.
Thus came into being Two Gun Battery. By 1887 work had commenced and 6 inch breech loading guns
ordered. The battery was designed by Major Rathbone of the Royal Engineers and incorporated two gun
emplacements and magazines for shells and cartridges. Together with the Back Beach Gun Battery (built in
1892) the guns could range some 6000 yards (5.9km). In 1894 the fortifications were added to with the
construction of a master-gunner’s house near the lighthouse.
LIGHTHOUSE BATTERY
The guns were never used against an enemy and were integrated into the defence system for Durban
developed during the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). In 1904 they were upgraded and new mobile Naval guns
hauled up a specially constructed narrow-guage rail. This rail ran along the old pathway which still exists on the
north west of the Bluff. Two Gun Battery survives buried under the layers of later constructions and by WW2
became known as Lighthouse Battery. During WW1 this battery was amplified with another built on slightly
higher ground to the South. Bluff Battery (1916) was a specific project of the Royal Navy and the Royal Natal
Naval Volunteers (RNNV). Two more modern quick-firing 6 inch guns were sited in front of a four roomed
underground magazine and these were to serve as defences until well into WW2. The RNNV had traditionally
used the Bluff during the nineteenth century for their annual camps under their enthusiastic originator and
commander, Harry Escombe.
5. WORLD WAR 2
South Africa entered the war in an extremely under-prepared state: there was bias towards the Air Force at the
expense of other sectors; and the forces were a confused tangle of disconnected units. Throughout the war this
was reflected in Durban’s war defences with effective control being diluted through a myriad of different units.
BLUFF FORTRESS
Durban entered the war with the 6 inch quick-firing guns of Bluff Battery; they were added to with two mobile 6
inch guns on Arrol platforms located between Two Gun Battery and the lighthouse. Thus began the process
which transformed the Bluff into Bluff Fortress. Durban was to take on an important role as a southern
hemisphere port for the servicing and refreshment of millions of service men and women and almost two
hundred thousand ships in large numbers of security convoys. John Craig, a former Harbour Advisory Engineer
headed the Fortifications and Coastal Works Section of the Defence Force. Lt. W. Wright was appointed to
begin a series of defensive works around Durban at the
centre of which was the Bluff and the harbour entrance channel.
BLOCK SHIPS
An early concern for the safety and efficiency of the port was the threat of enemy ships scuttling themselves
inside the harbour entrance thereby blocking the port. This looked likely when two Italian merchant ships, the
Timavo and the Gerusalleme left the harbour immediately before Italy entered the war on 9th June 1940. All the
Bluff guns were prepared for action but the ships left without aggression on route to Lourenco Marques
(Maputo).
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