Bowesdorp, now a ghost town, was a small village situated along the N7 National Route in Namaqualand, between Garies and Springbok in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa.
Located approximately 63.5 km south of Springbok and 500 km north of Cape Town, Bowesdorp was established in the mid-19th century on the farm Wilgenhoutskloof and named after Dr. Henry Bowe, a doctor in Namaqualand.
Bowesdorp falls within the Kamiesberg Local Municipality and the Namakwa District Municipality.
Situated in a narrow valley between high mountains, there was insufficient water and space for expansion. Consequently, the church, post office, police station, and shops were relocated to Kamieskroon, 8 km away, along the N7 national highway.
History
In 1850, the Dutch Reformed parish of Namaqualand was separated from the mother parish of Clanwilliam, and a place for a church was required. A site was chosen on the farm Wilgenhoutskloof, and the church, the first in Namaqualand, was completed in 1864.
Plots were surveyed and sold, and the village that sprang up around the church was at first named Bowesville after Henry Bowe, a Namaqualand doctor.
The village did not develop much until 1897, when Moses Schuur opened a shop and built a hotel next to it. Then came the post office, the police station, and the prison, and it seemed as if Bowesdorp was on the road to prosperity. However, the growing importance of Springbok, which had been established in 1863, endangered the future of Bowesdorp.
The Parsons preferred taking up residence at Springbok rather than at Bowesdorp. In 1919, Dr. W. P. Steenkamp, the new parish minister, decided to build a church in Springbok instead of repairing the one in Bowesdorp. This was a heavy blow to Bowesdorp.
In 1922, Dr. W. P. Steenkamp recommended that the urgently needed repairs to the church at Bowesdorp be discontinued because of the high cost. If the community wanted a new church, it should build one at a more suitable place where more water and space for future development would be available than in the narrow kloof between high mountains.
Consequently, a new church was completed in 1924 on the road to Garies. The post office, police station, and shops were moved there too, and so the village of Kamieskroon arose. That was Bowesdorp’s deathblow. Plots which had originally cost 6140 were sold for £8, and the only buyer of property was Adriaan Visser, a former constable in Bowesdorp. Adriaan Visser turned the former village into his farm.
A signpost standing beside the road still indicates the site of the ghost town, but all that remains of it are the ruins of the church, the hotel, the police station, and the prison near the present farmhouse.