Montagu Pass
mountain pass
Montagu Pass is situated in the Western Cape province of South Africa, on the unsigned road between Herold and George. The all gravel pass parallels the newer Outeniqua Pass which is designated as the N9/N12. The pass was named after John Montagu, Colonial Secretary of the Cape in the 1840s, who formally opened the pass in 1847.
The pass was damaged by floods in November 1996, and was closed for most of 1997 for repairs. A driving time of about one hour will take one over the Outeniqua Mountains and through the village of Herold to the N9.
The pass was designated a provincial heritage site in 1972.
Construction
In 1844, some 250 convicts started with the construction of the pass and it was opened for traffic in December 1847. The passage over the Outeniqua mountains, which used to take a full three days over the Cradock Pass, could now be accomplished within three hours. Today it takes 15 minutes by car.
Henry Fancourt White was the engineer in charge of the work.
“Montagu Pass” enters the record as mountain pass. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Montagu, Pass and mountain can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Montagu Pass” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Montagu, Pass and mountain provides the most credible route into that argument.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q505944. Authority coordinates are -33.867, 22.450. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1847, 1996, 1997 and 1972.
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This entry incorporates text from “Montagu Pass” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.