Walk around the cemetery and see graves ancient and contemporary. Adjacent to a park and the sports grounds lies the historic graveyard of this valley. With graves dating back hundreds of years, many of them unmarked save for their beautiful local stone; this is a peaceful and pretty place to spend quiet time.

There is at least one grave of a British soldier who died during a skirmish in the Anglo-Boer War (a pair of local residents, of British descent, place fresh flowers on the soldier’s grave on the anniversary of his death) and a number of touchingly small children’s graves. There is also the lavish grave of a man very much alive and well and delivering his vegetables in Nieu Bethesda every Saturday.

The cemetery is divided along the same socio-economic line that divides the families of the village: above the road that leads to the cemetery was known as the Onderdorp (downtown) where the poorer people lived; below that, in the Bodorp (uptown), lived the wealthier people – so it is in the graveyard. English speaking people were allocated space in the cemetery later.