The Castle of Good Hope was first called the "Fort de Goede Hoop". It was built in Cape Town by Jan van Riebeeck, a Dutch merchant sent by the Dutch East-India Trading Company in 1652 to set up a stop-over where traders could stop to stock up on fresh vegetables and meat en route from Europe to Asia.

The Castel was built in order to provide protection to the settlers. A large garden was established where fruit and veggies could be grown, and meat was traded for with the locals.

Castle of Good Hope (Image source)

The Castle Makeover

The clay walls kept collapsing and needing repair, so the fort was rebuilt to the pentagonal fort that we still see in the Mother City today. It took around 30 years to be completed and is the oldest surviving building in South Africa!

The second Castle was planned from a central point with five bastions, which were named after the main titles of Willem, Prince of Orange: The western bastion was named Leerdam and the others, in a clockwise direction, Buuren, Katzenellenbogen, Nassau and Orange.

This fort has walls of almost 10 m built from massive boulders.

It was declared a National Monument by 1936. However, serious efforts to restore and conserve it began only in the 1980s.

The Castle of Good Hope houses the Castle Military Museum and the Willia Fehr Collection of historic artworks.

It is also the military headquarters of the South African army in the Western Cape.

(Information source)

Aerial View (Image source)

Castle ghosts?

According to this website, although the sea is now a distance away when it was built it was on the beach. It was done the way so that when the tide came in it would fill the moat. But also if there were prisoners in the dungeon they were a strong possibility that if there were huge waves it would fill the dungeon and they would drown. Also the fort was used as an execution site where slaves, convicts etc were hung.