Paarl

Paarl lies in the Berg River valley beneath a mountain of great rounded granite rocks. Its name, meaning pearl, recalls the gleam of the stone after rain. In 1687 the Cape governor Simon van der Stel allocated farms at the foot of the mountain; French Huguenot settlers received land in the district the following year. The farms and vineyards of the Drakenstein valley grew around the settlement, and a church established in the early eighteenth century helped make Paarl a centre of the district.