Emmarentia Dam

This guide to Emmarentia Dam in Johannesburg follows Louw Geldenhuys, a young landowner who rode with the Krugersdorp commando in the Boer War, and the destitute Afrikaner veterans he put to work hauling stone for a dam wall across the Westdene spruit after 1902. It traces the arrangement he struck with those men, land and peach trees around the new water in exchange for a share of the fruit they grew. Look at the rough stone bank beneath the reed beds, patched only twice since it was built.