Before Greyton was established in 1854, the verdant plains and forested ravines of the area were home to the Hessequas Khoikhoi tribe who had their kraals near the Gobos river, which they named after their ancestral chief.

Their many thousands of cattle and sheep were the reason why Ensign Schriver of the Castle of Good Hope was sent here in the late 1600s to barter with their head man, Captain Stoffel Koekson.

[2] In 1793, Koekson's tribal lands were given to the young Dutchman, Marthinus Theunissen, who built a homestead (no longer standing) on his farm Weltevreden.

The layout of the village was designed and set out by J G Rietz, a senior surveyor at the time, and remains essentially the same with only a few changes and additions through the years.

Following Herbert Vigne's death in 1895, Greyton, like many Overberg towns, lived through harsh economic times that characterised the turn of the century.

But the long narrow plots that defined the layout of the town continued to provide a food source for families, as well as a place to keep livestock for domestic use.

The Vigne descendants subdivided more land at the present entrance to the town, on which several large Victorian houses were built and still stand today.