Timed to co-incide with the blooming of the valley’s rare and beautiful indigenous wild flowers, the Drostdy-Hof Tulbagh Spring Arts Festival is planning three days of artistic and musical events, as well as scenic walks to celebrate the legacy of the 18th century Cape Governor Rijk Tulbagh, from Friday, August 24 to Sunday, August 26.

A secret walled garden will be open for the festival period only and local artists, musicians and crafters will be exhibiting in honour of the region’s cultural heritage and rich past. The organisers promise a feast of visual, painted, graphic and even land art installations featuring Strydom van der Merwe. There will be village art walks and arts meanders featuring historic homes, artist studios and private collections.

Look out for classical guitarist, Derek Gripper and South Africa’s oldest church building, the Oude Volkskerk will host classical music concerts including the Tygerberg Camerata Choir. Prized artworks from great South African names will go on auction. Expect to find works by Gregoire Boonzaaier, Carl Buchner, Dawid Botha and Christo Coetzee, amongst others.

The third oldest town in the country, Tulbagh is home to 32 national monument buildings and an exciting, as yet undiscovered seam of talent that is showing itself for the first time to raise the town’s profile and funds for the Tulbagh Community Gardens and Galgeheuwel Reserve Initiative.

The home (drostdy) and seat of local government for Tulbagh was designed in the Cape Dutch style by renowned architect, Louis-Michel Thibault and completed in 1806. Regarded as one of his finest works, the magistrate/governor’s residence also served as the courthouse (hof) from 1806 to 1822.

Today, De Oude Drostdy, as the building is known, houses a small and very popular museum with very fine examples of Cape Dutch furniture. It is also the home of Drostdy-Hof wines.