Dundee’s Lost Tales – A ‘mistake’ that became a legend
There have also been rumours that Fort mistake is haunted
A mistake or not?
You have probably passed it more times than you care to remember. The more active may have even taken a hike up the steep hill.
Yes, we are talking about Fort Mistake.
Archaelogical students have long marveled at the Fort’s dry stone walls. But just how did it get its name and was the fort indeed a mistake?
There are many theories that have done the rounds.
In the late 1880’s, the Mkupe Pass (Mt Mkupe is that great massif diagonally opposite Fort Mistake), was of vital importance to the British.
It was the supply line during the Anglo Zulu and Anglo Boer Wars between military HQ in Pietermaritzburg and the frontier stations of Dundee and Newcastle. Some believe that the quaint name was all to do with the ‘foolish British’ (without proper maps) who were looking for Zululand in 1879 and built the fort on the wrong road facing Transvaal.
There is also a thought that it was dubbed as a mistake because the fort was built where there was no water.
Vital Road Link
In 1897, maps referred to two forts overlooking the vital road link- Fort One Tree Hill and Fort Mkupe. In 1899, Bacon’s Map of the Seat of War used the same names, marking a small circle to the west of the road and a large triangle to the east of the road.
The ‘mistake’ may have been the responsibility of an unknown cartographer. Up to 1910, ‘One Tree Hill’ is always shown to the east of the road and ‘Mkupe Mt’ written large to the west. The road has not changed positions.
But after 1910 the name Mkupe slipped off the map and ‘One Tree Hill’ took its place. In 1924, students from Wits University came to marvel at the construction of the fort and to ask for its declaration as a national monument, a request only acceded to 55 years later.
By then the name was firmly fixed in local minds as Fort Mistake and as such, Fort One Tree Hill remains.
It is a rueful and typically humourous reminder of the exasperation that local folk of British stock felt for the ways of the bumbling British army.
They had sore and sharp memories of the humiliations of Isandlwana and Majuba and the retreat from Talana and the Siege of Ladysmith.
There have also been rumours that Fort mistake is haunted. Tourists who have walked the steep climb to the top have spoken of phantom like images of uniformed soldiers taking up firing positions at the openings for firearms. But then again, this just adds to the mystique of this unique fort.
