During the British occupation, the occupiers were surprised by an attack by the Boers that resulted in the death of 23 British soldiers. The British retaliated by burning down twenty houses and interning all the town's women and children in a concentration camp in Kimberley. The men were sent to POW camps inside and outside South Africa. Later in 1900 the British erected a blockhouse near the town on the road to Paardeberg. Its rectangular shape is one of only 12 blockhouses with that shape in South Africa.