The Lonehill

Koppie An inselberg or monadnock () is an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain. In Southern Africa a similar formation of granite is known as a koppie, a ...

is a hill located in the suburb named after it,

Lone Hill Lone Hill is a suburb north of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is located in Region E. Lone Hill is in the Gauteng province and is a suburb in Sandton. Lone Hill is an upmarket area mostly composed of residential properties. It is named after ...

, which is located in

Gauteng Gauteng ( ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name in Sotho-Tswana languages means 'place of gold'. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts for only ...

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 ...

. It is notable for the legends that surround the large boulder that sits atop the hill, precariously balanced on several other boulders.

Legend

The first legend is that if the top boulder of the Lonehill

were dislodged, all the whites in the country would leave. It's a latter-day version of an Anglo

Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sou ...

tale: that if the Boers dislodged the rock, the British would lose the war and leave

. A more recent legend is on how the Lonehill Nature Reserve was proclaimed a reserve. The motivation was centered around a rumour that a foreign individual was in the process of buying the area around the koppie, with the intent to remove the topmost rock. Local residents banded together and established the area as a nature reserve to prevent anyone from disturbing the well-known landmark.

Description

The Lonehill Koppie stands out as a lone koppie on the northern border of the city's suburbs, 28 km north of the city centre, and is a reminder of what Johannesburg looked like before it was settled. It is a rocky veld with small streams trickling, dotted with shrubs, small trees and knee-high grasses.

Guinea fowl Guineafowl (; sometimes called "pet speckled hens" or "original fowl") are birds of the family Numididae in the order Galliformes. They are endemic to Africa and rank among the oldest of the gallinaceous birds. Phylogenetically, they branched o ...

and porcupines used to roam the area, and it is now populated with hundreds of dassies. There's a small dam, called Lonehill Loch, around 200 metres to its north, which is a popular walking spot for local residents. The Koppie is largely made up of large, very old boulders, called tor rocks, with trees and indigenous shrubs now almost obscuring the rocks except for the topmost boulders. These days it is surrounded by clusters of homes and developments in what is now the suburb of

. The koppie itself is located on a plot of around 20 acres, surrounded by

veld Veld ( or ), also spelled veldt, is a type of wide open rural landscape in :Southern Africa. Particularly, it is a flat area covered in grass or low scrub, especially in the countries of South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe and Bot ...

, which is around 80 metres high known as Lonehill Loch. It is unlocked only on weekends, allowing hikers and picnickers to climb to the top, or just lay out a picnic blanket in its surrounding grassy area.Lonehill - Seeff Properties
. The veld contains three Stone Age furnaces. These were excavated in the 1960s by Professor Revil Mason, formerly head of archaeology at

Wits University The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( or ). The university ...

. The furnaces were hidden by Mason, to protect them, because they would need a protective structure built around them and there was no funding to develop the site. Mason estimated that the furnaces date to around 1600, the same period as the Melville Koppies furnace. Bits of slag were found near the furnaces, on large flat rocks with indentations in them that were used for grinding. Near the furnace site is another area where

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and ...

was manufactured, fenced like the furnace area. Half-way up the Koppie there are remnants of stone walls that would have been a kraal and living areas.

References

{{coord missing, South Africa Hills of South Africa