When James Somers Kirkwood, an auctioneer from Port Elizabeth, arrived in the Sundays River Valley in 1877 to auction one of the original farms, he found the valley covered in Spekboom with a sheep or livestock farm dotted here and there.
Kirkwood envisioned the valley with irrigated fruit orchards and there and then bought himself a farm starting with development of an irrigation scheme. Unfortunately no one shared his enthusiasm. In 1889 Kirkwood died a financially and spiritually broken person whose vision was way ahead of time. It was the next century that his dream of a valley full of fruit orchards became reality.
But it did not stop there. Today, Kirkwood is the centre of the largest citrus area in South Africa with about 18000Ha under citrus trees.
Of the golden fruit produced there, about 22 million 15kg cartons of oranges, lemons, grapefruit and mandarins are exported all over the world, earning a total of R3.5 billion in foreign exchange for the Eastern Cape. This make citrus the second largest industry in the province after the motor industry.
The Addo Elephant National Park and the increase seen in game farms in die valley and Kirkwood area have also contributed in making our region a very popular malaria free tourist location.