The design was developed by the army’s chief engineer in South Africa, General Sir Elliot Wood, who based it upon a similar pattern he had used in the Sudan during the 1880’s. Examples of this structure may still be found at Wellington, Burgersdorp, Harrismith, Wolseley, Montagu, Prieska and Laingsburg, while others are scattered about the Magaliesberge and the foothills of the Khahlamba. A miniaturised version may also be found in the cemetery at Darling.

Although Wood’s design was excellent and did good service in guarding the railway links, it was too substantial and hence too expensive and time-consuming to build. These shortcomings became more evident after January 1901 when the Dutch began to redefine the nature of the conflict and reconstituted their field forces into smaller groups of highly mobile horse commandos. The wide-open plains of the southern African interior presented few obstacles to their movement and when Republican forces invaded the Cape for the second time, they were able to drive deep into British territory and hit with impunity at civilian targets, causing havoc to the Colony’s well-established civilian service infrastructure. In an attempt to limit these guerrilla tactics the British began to criss-cross the country with a series of barbed wire fences, which they hoped would hamper commando movement and eventually force their surrender.

By the end of the war, in May 1902, the main lines of barbed wire stretched from Cape Town to Mafeking, Port Elizabeth to De Aar, Naaupoort to Pietersburg, East London to Aliwal North, Rustenburg to Lourenco Marques, Durban to Mafeking, and from Hutchinson to Carnarvon, Calvinia, and thence through to the west coast. In most cases these ran alongside existing railway lines, which made the task of patrolling them, and of servicing the needs of men on sentry duty, a relatively simple matter. The wire used varied from the simple, two-strand coil to the much-vaunted eight-stranded variety, which was reputed to be “uncuttable”.

Blockhouses formed an essential part of this policy, and it was planned to string out a series of these structures along the fences within sight of each other. The number involved was massive, and because the Wood prototype was too substantial for this use, a smaller, more affordable unit, suitable for mass-production, was called for. The answer was provided by Major SR Rice, of the Royal Engineers, who reduced the concept of a blockhouse to a simple cylindrical drum topped by a corrugated iron roof and surrounded at its base by a circular wall of stones or sand-bags. The inner tower was created by placing two corrugated-iron water tanks of differing diameters, one within the other, and filling the space between them with stones and earth. The perimeter defences were often supplemented by trenches, but these were used more as shelters than firing positions. The final product may not have been as permanent as Wood’s design, but then it was not as expensive.

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