The Great Fish River formed the eastern boundary of the Cape Colony until 1819. The current village is said to take its name from a small stone house used for shelter and cooking by troops camping on the bank of this river. Another explanation links the name to the hot climate as experienced by the troops stationed there. The Cookhouse is located on what was the Roodewal farm owned by Frans Johannes van Aardt in the 1770s. He was born on 12 September 1777 in Somerset East and died in 1856. Frans Johannes van Aardt was married twice; first to Susanna Wilhelmina Tregardt on 21 October 1798. She died in 1825 aged 27. This small town got its name is in the late 1790s because Susanna van Aardt supplied provisions from her "cookhouse" to riders and soldiers waiting to cross the Great Fish River. After her death, Frans Johannes married Maria Johanna Mentz in 1826. In the 1870s, the government of Prime Minister John Molteno oversaw a massive expansion of the Cape Colony's railway system, and a route northwards to De Aar from Port Elizabeth and Port Alfred was chosen by the Cape Government Railways to pass through what is now Cookhouse. A station was built here, which became an important railway junction, and a small settlement formed around this connection. This railway station in Cookhouse is an attraction was written about in Cookhouse Station, a poem by Chris Mann that describes how he imagines the railway station was at its peak.
Monuments and museums
Cookhouse is home to the Slachter's Nek monument, commemorating the hanging of the five rebels of the Slachter's Nek Rebellion who were sentenced by the British to be hanged in public. The monument was erected in 1916, 100 years after the execution.
Cookhouse is home to Thomas Pringle's Cairn, a memorial built to commemorate his passage through the town.
The Fallen Heroes Memorial was unveiled in 2007 to commemorate Cookhouse residents who lost their lives in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.
The Fairworld Fine Wool Museum is also located in Cookhouse and it shows the history of farming and wool production in the town. Willen van Aardt established the museum to tell the story of Fine Wool breeding on the farm as well as the history of the van Aardt family who have produced wool on the farm since 1797. The Fairwold Merino holds the current South African record price of for a Merino ram.
