Towering over Vergelegen House and providing ample shade for visitors passing through the eponymous wine estate’s extensive gardens are the property’s “Big Five” camphor trees, which were declared national monuments in 1942. Willem Adriaan van der Stel began planting these trees in 1700, shortly after he capriciously laid claim to nearly 75,000 acres of prime agricultural land 50 kilometers southeast of Cape Town. As an Extraordinary Councillor of the Dutch East Indies and the governor of the Cape Colony, his actions were not unusual especially since the previous governor, his…
