Fort Schanskop

Pretoria, South Africa, South Africa

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Fort Schanskop is a late nineteenth-century military fort on a hill near the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria, built by the government of the former Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek to help defend the capital after the 1896 Jameson Raid.

Completed in 1897 by the German firm Krupp, it is a small pentagonal fort with revolving artillery positions designed to protect approaches such as the Johannesburg road and nearby railway lines, though it never saw major combat and was occupied by British forces when they took Pretoria in June 1900.

In the twentieth century it was declared a National Monument and later incorporated into the Voortrekker Monument and Nature Reserve, restored and adapted to house exhibits related to the Anglo-Boer War, making it today a provincial heritage site and a museum where visitors can explore preserved fortifications, displays and an amphitheatre used for events.