Botha's Hill is a small town outside Hillcrest in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It is the gateway to the Valley of a Thousand Hills.
The village is 37km north-west of Durban, on the old main road to Pietermaritzburg before the N3 highway was built. It was named after a settler, Philip Rudolph Botha, grandfather of General Louis Botha (1862-1919), first Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa.[2]
The Botha's Hill Trading Store was established in about 1920 (alongside the new road past the station), and a butchery and post office a little further up. Opposite the Trading Store was Bob Emmett's Wayside Store. In 1930 Clement Stott, who owned large tracts of land here, established the village: Botha's Hill Estates. His own mansion was on the northern edge of the hill (next to Warwickshire Cresc), with vast views over the Valley of a Thousand Hills. He reputedly used to have hunting parties into the valley below. He donated land on the hilltop for the new Kearsney College, which moved from Stanger in 1931. His son, Dr Halley Stott, founded the Valley Trust which provided health-care and training in sustainable agriculture to residents of the tribal land in the nearby KwaNyuswa valley. By now, people were starting to build homes in the little village. Clement Stott had plans for a hotel in Ridge Road and for a golf course on what had been Potgieter's farm in the Assagay Valley.
A Country Club was planned where Rob Roy Hotel now stands, and the hotel opened in 1935. Rob Roy burned to the ground in December 1962 and was rebuilt by Rolf Paeper, a well-known present resident of Botha's Hill.
In the late 1930s a small zoo and tea garden was opened by Mr and Mrs Burnand on the property just to the left of the present Kearsney gates, and they had a snake pit, lions, buck, and monkeys. The zoo was closed in the early 40's following public complaints, but the tea garden continued for a while in the hands of Mr & Mrs Fred Dawes. The Botha's Hill Water Company had been formed in the early '30s and water was pumped from the Umhlatuzana River in Potgieter's valley up to tanks at Kearsney College and to the concrete reservoir in Ridge Road. Regional water came in the early 1940s. A bit later another store, Roberts' Foodliner, opened just above the present garage and was run by Stan Roberts and Hersie Jones, later moving and expanding to the entrance of Botha Rd where the Fainting Goat Centre now lies.
Probably the most outstanding feature of Botha's Hill is the incredible vista of the Valley of a Thousand Hills, the myriad of sand-stone-capped hills incised by streams and rivulets in the granite basin, with the Umgeni River and Inanda Dam in the northern distance. No wonder thousands of tourists flock annually to this scenic spot to absorb its charm. (Acknowledgment to Botha's Hill Community Forum).
