The Natal interior

Abstract

The Natal Interior, a pastoral region since the nineteenth century, has throughout its history experienced rural and urban growth. The landscape of the past is thus being more rapidly changed in Natal than in most parts of South Africa. However, the region still provides a most interesting, and often surprising, landscape. It was the Cape Colonists who initiated the rural settlement with their stock-farming and cultural ideas, but the overall character of the settlement eventually became British, and building styles as a rule followed the general trends in England. In time the pattern of the towns established to administer and act as commercial centres for the surrounding rural areas was changed when the Natal coalfields began to emerge. These caused the development of many self-contained, coalmining communities.