The town of Nelspoort lies at the foot of the Nuweveld Mountains, 50 kilometres north-east of Beaufort West on an old section of the N1 highway.

[3] The actual town of Nelspoort had its origins nearly a century later, when a young Anglo-Italian immigrant, John Molteno, arrived and established a farming business by that name.

[2] During the Anglo-Boer War, the British built hundreds of blockhouses in the area to protect their prime railway link, and in 1920 a Sanatorium was opened nearby for patients with Tuberculosis and other pulmonary illnesses.

This institution was located here to take advantage of the dry, clean, fresh air of the Karoo mountains, and provided employment for many local villagers.

[4] Recently, a change in the route of both the N1 highway (the largest road in the country) and the Cape's main Railway line, have meant that the town has been deprived of a large percentage of its income and has consequently shrunk.