The municipality's town page connects the name with two cannons and an anchor.
Heritage
More than one account
The public sources reviewed here offer different explanations for the name. The record preserves both accounts and leaves the origin unresolved.
Two published explanations
The Stats SA settlement page uses the spelling “Canon Rocks” and records an account of a cannon reportedly seen by Robert Jacob Gordon in 1786.
These are different public accounts of the place name. The sources reviewed here do not establish a definitive origin.
The wording above summarizes each source rather than quoting it.
A place-name account is not artifact provenance
The village cannons and anchors are a separate historical question from how the place received its name. ES Grossman's preserved article records a 1962 salvage account for two cannons and explains that the anchors' origins remain unresolved in that source.
Read Cannon Rocks cannons and anchors. It retains the source byline, January 2015 date and original featured image; the historical account is not presented as independent current verification.
Other historical perspectives
- The Quiet FrontierA 2025 editorial interpretation, preserved as an article rather than an authoritative history.
- SAAF unscheduled visit to Cannon RocksA dated village-history entry from the archive.
- Tap water at lastA historical 2006 community report, republished with its archive date.