Bathurst, Eastern Cape

Bathurst is about inland from Port Alfred, on the R67 road, in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Its chief claim to fame is that it was the early administrative centre established by the British Government for the 1820 British Settlers who were sent to the district as a buffer between the Cape Colony and the Xhosa pastoralists who were migrating southwards and westwards along the coast. Bathurst is now part of the Ndlambe Local Municipality in the Sarah Baartman District Municipality of the Eastern Cape.OverviewMany of the original settler houses and other buildings have been preserved, and there remains much of the look and feel of an English village of the early 19th Century. The Pig and Whistle Inn, at the heart of the village, is reputedly the oldest extant pub in the country. Built in 1821 by Thomas Hartley, a blacksmith who came from Nottinghamshire with the Settlers. Later accommodation was added and it became known as the Bathurst Inn. Legend has it that it was nicknamed "The Pig & Whistle" by the men at the nearby 43 Air School in World War II.While time has moved slowly in Bathurst, there is an increasing population of artists, academics, Rhodes University is only away, and retirees.Bathurst hosts a pineapple museum whose building is shaped like a tall pineapple.