Ceres is the administrative centre and largest town of the

Witzenberg Local Municipality Witzenberg Municipality is a local municipality located within the Cape Winelands District Municipality, in the Western Cape province of South Africa. it had a population of 115,946. Geography The municipality covers an area of which include ...

in the

Western Cape The Western Cape is a province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , and the third most populous, with an estimated 7 million inhabitants in 2020 ...

Province of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

. Ceres serves as a regional centre for the surrounding towns of Wolseley,

Tulbagh Tulbagh, named after Dutch Cape Colony Governor Ryk Tulbagh, is a town located in the "Land van Waveren" mountain basin (also known as the Tulbagh basin), in the Winelands of the Western Cape, South Africa. The basin is fringed on three side ...

, Op-die-Berg and

Prince Alfred Hamlet Prince Alfred Hamlet is a small town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It was founded by Johannes Cornelis Goosen, who was born in the Klein Drakenstein and came to the Warm Bokkeveld as a young farmer. In March 1851 Goosen bought the ...

. It is situated in the ''Warmbokkeveld'' (

Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...

: "warm antelope field") Valley about 170 km north-east of

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

. Ceres is located at the north-eastern entrance to Michell's Pass and was the old route north between

and

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Dem ...

, which was later replaced by the N1 highway, which traverses the

Breede River Valley Breede River Valley is a region of Western Cape Province, South Africa known for being the largest fruit and wine producing valley in the Western Cape, as well as South Africa's leading race-horse breeding area. It is part of the Boland borderin ...

to the south. Named after the

Roman goddess Roman mythology is the body of myths of ancient Rome as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans. One of a wide variety of genres of Roman folklore, ''Roman mythology'' may also refer to the modern study of these representa ...

of agriculture,

Ceres Ceres most commonly refers to: * Ceres (dwarf planet), the largest asteroid * Ceres (mythology), the Roman goddess of agriculture Ceres may also refer to: Places Brazil * Ceres, Goiás, Brazil * Ceres Microregion, in north-central Goiás ...

, a name which is fitting as the valley in which the town is situated is extremely fertile and is a major producer of South Africa's

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, ...

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...

Geography and climate

Ceres experiences a typical

Mediterranean climate A Mediterranean climate (also called a dry summer temperate climate ''Cs'') is a temperate climate sub-type, generally characterized by warm, dry summers and mild, fairly wet winters; these weather conditions are typically experienced in the ...

tempered by its altitude. The town experiences warmer temperatures in summer, due to its inland location with infrequent rainfall, however winters are cool to quite cold and wet, with frequent snowfalls on the surrounding higher-lying ground, rarely falling on the valley floor itself. Total annual precipitation averages 1088 mm, with average temperatures ranging from a February maximum of 29,9 °C to a July minimum of 2,4 °C. The ''Warmbokkeveld'' is climatically warmer than the surrounding highlands, which is known as the ''Kouebokkeveld'' ("cold antelope field"), with the latter often experiencing snowfalls in winter. Ceres is well known for

fruit juices Juice is a drink made from the extraction or pressing of the natural liquid contained in fruit and vegetables. It can also refer to liquids that are flavored with concentrate or other biological food sources, such as meat or seafood, such as ...

exported worldwide bearing the town's name. It is also famous locally for winter

snow Snow comprises individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water throughout ...

and cherries:

residents flock to the town during winter to ski or simply play in the powder — something of a rarity for the otherwise mild climate they are used to — whilst in summer, people come to pick cherries at the "Klondyke" farm.

is one of the most stable parts of the world in seismic terms but on 29 September 1969 a massive shock shook the district without warning. The epicentre of the quake was on a major local structure called the

Worcester Worcester may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England ** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament * Worcester Park, London, Engla ...

fault, which had clearly been geologically active in the distant past but had not moved in over three hundred years of recorded history. Ceres was affected badly. Many old Cape Dutch buildings were damaged and some people died. The quake was strong enough to knock plaster off walls in

, a hundred miles (160 kilometres) away.

Famous people

De Wet Barry De Wet Barry (born 24 June 1978 in Ceres, Western Cape) is a South African former rugby union footballer who played 38 test matches for the South Africa (the Springboks). In 2000, Barry made his Springbok debut against Canada in East London. Bar ...

- Rugby union player,

Springbok The springbok (''Antidorcas marsupialis'') is a medium-sized antelope found mainly in south and southwest Africa. The sole member of the genus ''Antidorcas'', this bovid was first described by the German zoologist Eberhard August Wilhelm ...

Christiaan Barnard Christiaan Neethling Barnard (8 November 1922 – 2 September 2001) was a South African cardiac surgeon who performed the world's first human-to-human heart transplant operation. On 3 December 1967, Barnard transplanted the heart of accident-v ...

—first surgeon to perform a successful human-to-human

heart transplant A heart transplant, or a cardiac transplant, is a surgical transplant procedure performed on patients with end-stage heart failure or severe coronary artery disease when other medical or surgical treatments have failed. , the most common procedu ...

operation spent the early years of his medical practice in Ceres. * Ernst Joubert - Rugby player * Henry Francis Maltby - Writer and playwright * Raymond Herman Mordt - Rugby union player,

* Simon Rademan - Fashion designer and stylist * Breyton Paulse - Springbok rugby player *

Ernst van Dyk Ernst Francois van Dyk OIS (born 4 April 1973) is a South African wheelchair racer and handcyclist. He has won a record 10 wheelchair titles in the Boston Marathon. He was also awarded the Laureus World Sports Awards for ''Sportsperson with ...

- Wheelchair racer *

John Villet John Villiers Villet (born 3 November 1954 in Ceres, Western Cape) is a former South African rugby union player. Playing career Villet made his provincial debut for Western Province in 1977. He however, only became a regular member of the Wes ...

- Springbok rugby player

Coats of arms

Municipal (1) — The Ceres municipal council assumed a pseudo-heraldic "coat of arms" in 1928. Western Cape Archives : Ceres Municipal Minutes (2 March 1928).The arms were depicted on
cigarette card
issued in 1931. The shield was quartered, and depicted (1) a sheaf of wheat on a red background, (2) a landscape scene showing a bridge across a river, (3) a tree on a sky blue background, and (4) a cornucopia on a green background. The motto was ''Loci dulcedo nos attinet''. Municipal (2) — The council assumed a proper coat of arms, designed by

Ivan Mitford-Barberton Ivan Mitford-Barberton (1896–1976) was a sculptor, writer and authority on heraldry. Early life and education Mitford-Barberton was born in Somerset East, in Cape Colony, in 1896. He was a descendant of several 1820 Settler families. His g ...

and H. Ellis Tomlinson, in 1948.Western Cape Archives : Ceres Municipal Minutes (28 June 1948). This was in response to a Cape Provincial Administration circular asking municipalities to have their arms checked and, if necessary, re-designed, to make them heraldically correct. The new arms were registered at the

Bureau of Heraldry Bureau ( ) may refer to: Agencies and organizations *Government agency *Public administration * News bureau, an office for gathering or distributing news, generally for a given geographical location * Bureau (European Parliament), the administrat ...

in March 1974. The arms were : ''Vert, a fess wavy Argent, thereon a barrulet wavy Azure, over all a pale Argent charged with a representation of the goddess Ceres, vested Vert, holding in her dexter hand a sheaf of wheat and in her sinister a torch enflamed all proper; in chief a mural crown Gules''. The motto was the same as before. In layman's terms, the new design was a green shield with a silver/blue/silver wavy stripe across the middle, and a vertical silver stripe depicting a red mural crown and the figure of the Roman goddess Ceres.

Gallery

Image:Matroosberg new.jpg, Matroosberg in the Hex River Mountains on the south-eastern flank of the Ceres valley

References

External links