Kestell is a small maize farming town in the Free State province of South Africa.

The new village was laid out in 1905 on the farms Mooifontein and Driekuil, acquired from Adriaan and Johannes Bezuidenhout.

It is named after the Reverend Dr. John Daniel Kestell (1854 - 1941), Anglo-Afrikaner minister of the Dutch Reformed Church from 1894 to 1903, author and cultural leader, who played an important role in the Anglo-Boer War and later helped with the Bible translations into Afrikaans.

[3][better source needed] Prof. Dr JD Kestell at the Anglo-Boer War Museum in Bloemfontein is named after him.

The battle took place on 25 December 1901 when General Christiaan De Wet's Boer troops defeated a British column.