Grootvadersbosch is in the foothills of the Langeberg, east of Oude Post and the Tradouws Pass to Barrydale and north of the gravel road from Swellendam over the Buffeljags River to Suurbraak and Heidelberg.

The Cape bushbuck was first seen by European scientists in this forest in 1776, when the Swede Anders Sparrman visited.

Dutch East India Company soldiers began cutting trees in this forest early on.

In 1744, Dutch Cape Colony Governor Hendrik Swellengrebel founded as school here where Abraham Schietekat worked as a teacher and ministered to the local Boers.

The farm was visited by several famous people over the years: the botanists Carl Peter Thunberg and Francis Masson in 1772, traveler and explorer François Levaillant in 1782, the missionary botanist James Backhouse, and the missionary John Philip in 1830.