Elim

“And they came to Elim, where there were twelve wells of water, and threescore and ten palm trees: and they encamped there by the waters.”

For over 180 years the Overberg town of Elim – named after the place mentioned in the Bible, Exodus 15 vs 27 – has lain at the heart of a network of gravel roads which link Gansbaai and Cape Agulhas. For just as long a time Elim, steeped in the history of the Moravian church in South Africa, has been relatively closed to the public due to the inaccessibility of the gravel roads. This has recently changed with the building of the new Agulhas road.

Elim is a Moravian Mission Station that was established on the Agulhas Plain by German missionaries in 1824. When selecting a location for their mission stations the Moravian missionaries placed high importance on the proximity of water to the location. It was also vital that the terrain was suitable for planting vines so that communion wine could easily be produced.


The missionaries were renowned for not simply bringing the Gospel here but also for teaching the people various trades and skills. The Elim thatchers are particularly renowned for their craftsmanship, the craft is passed from father to son and their skills are exported not only to the surrounding areas and other parts of South Africa but to other parts of the world. Approximately 75% of the young men leave the village to work elsewhere and “put food on the table” using their thatching craft. Those that stay, work on the surrounding farms.

The community has generally always had a good relationship with the white farmers. This is largely due to the relative isolation of the town during the Apartheid years. The standard of education at the Mission School was so high that many of the farmers sent their children to the school which made the school multi-racial - a rare exception in South Africa in those years. This has made a positive impact on the inter-cultural relationships of the people in the area and seems to have instilled harmony in the social structures and the spirit of the whole community.



This picturesque town, a national monument, is situated on the dirt-road between Gansbaai and Bredasdorp. It has changed little over the years and, until this day; only members of the Moravian Church live here. Although the ancestory of Elim’s population is diverse it seems dominated by the Khoi blood line. The community, still mainly Moravian, consists of farmers, farm workers and artisans. The area is becoming renowned for the export of fynbos and the cultivation of vineyards.

Elim also has much to offer visitors to the town. The surrounding Geelkop nature reserve has 102 Fynbos species which cannot be found anywhere else in the world. The church houses the biggest and oldest working clock in South Africa. It was built in Germany in 1757, shipped and installed in Elim in 1914 and still keeps perfect time.

Elim’s water mill was built in 1828 and has the largest wooden wheel of its kind in South Africa. The mill was used until 1972 when modern technology made it obsolete. However, in 1990 it was restored so that the community could again make traditional stone ground flour.

The Kerkwerf itself is a collection of communal buildings with a central function. The village used to be, and still is for the most part, a self-sustaining farming community, in historical days delivering its handicrafts and farm goods to the surrounding settlements. The working water mill, which used to grind the flour for the local bakery, has been restored to its original historical state and will soon be providing its produce again.

The local museum, with a collection of historical handicraft shows the history of the village with a large collection of historical photos. The museum is situated in the original mission store, which was until recently an important provider of goods for a large area around Elim.

The original school building, a dark-red plastered building, now houses the municipal library, in front of it, as far as we know, the only monument celebrating the abolition of slavery (in 1835) in South Africa. There is a perfect little Guesthouse on the Kerkwerf, which enables visitors to enjoy Elim even more at leisure.