In the article below, journalist Lucille Davie traces the fascinating history of various South African War battles in the Magaliesberg. The piece was originally published on the City of Joburg's website on 10 December 2009. Click here to view more of Davie's work.
“The cemetery is the ghost of Roodepoort West. It is the last vision of the vibrant African location that once stood where the suburban houses now stand. Like a ghost, the cemetery continues to haunt the people, now living miles away in Dobsonville, who remember its past." - Michelle Hay.
In the article below, journalist Lucille Davie highlights the remarkable work of archaeologist Revil Mason. The piece was originally published on the City of Joburg's website on 19 November 2009. Click here to view more of Davie's work.
In the article below, journalist Lucille Davie tells the story of the infrastructure preparation for the 2010 World Cup and reveals the fascinating history of soccer in Johannesburg. The article was first published on the City of Joburg's website on 14 February 2007. Click here to view more of Davie's work.
On Saturday 16th February, Chinatown in Cyrildene put on its festive finery and glamour costumes. The colour red predominated and red symbolises happiness. The Chinatown in Cyrildene was celebrating the Chinese New Year in style with the biggest and best of street parties.
The Johannesburg Heritage Foundation has been given the generous gift of a delightful 1987 centenary calendar, celebrating the 100 years of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. The Calendar comprises six prints of watercolours by the well-known artist of that era, Philip Bawcombe.
What do names such as ‘Astoria, Regal, Plaza, Victory, Pigalle, Empire, Roxy, Odeon, Vaudette, Regent, Apollo, Ritz, and Bijou’, mean to you?
Generation Z will probably think they are apps and Millennials that they are computer games. Generation X will think of them as names of men’s suits, restaurants or maybe small-town hotels. Only the Baby Boomers will recognise the evocative names of long closed and largely forgotten bioscopes.
In the article below, journalist Lucille Davie unpacks the history of St Alban's Church in Ferreirastown and describes its restoration in 2012. The article was originally published on the City of Joburg's website on 19 February 2012. Click here to view more of Davie's work.
Prior to the 1994 elections, the National Party controlled both National Government and Provincial Government of the Transvaal. Planning of roads and townships were the responsibility of the Transvaal Provincial Administration (TPA).
Sandton was established as a town in its own right in 1969. It did not take long for residents to form ratepayers associations in most of the suburbs.
Dikgang Moseneke's (judge and a former deputy Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court) schooling fate was preordained. At the beginning of 1961, just after he had turned thirteen, he stepped up to the plate to be the third generation of family devotees to attend school at Kilnerton Training Institution. How could it be otherwise? Going to Kilnerton had been an immutable feature of the Moseneke family's heritage.
Ordinances of the Transvaal 1903, 1904 and Statutes of the Transvaal 1907. Whoever wants to look at old, dry, dusty, obsolete law books? Law books date, they take up space on shelves and laws are repealed. Legal language is precise and unemotional. The Transvaal ceased to exist in 1994 and today a completely different provincial government structure has replaced the pre 1994 arrangement of four all white driven apartheid provinces and the 10 bantustans.
In the article below, journalist Lucille Davie explores one of Johannesburg's architectural delights: Circa gallery. The piece was originally published on the City of Joburg's website on 6 February 2009. Click here to view more of Davie's work.
Last weekend (Sunday 3rd February 2019) I joined ten heritage stalwarts of Kensington who came together to acknowledge history and pay homage to a remarkable war memorial and the men whose names once appeared on it. We gathered because during January 2019 the memorial had been extensively and probably irreparably damaged. Erica Lűttich had together with her students created an art installation by wrapping the memorial in cloth.
In the article below, journalist Lucille Davie explores Brenthurst, arguably Johannesburg’s most splendid garden. The piece was first published on the City of Joburg's website on 2 February 2004. Please note that tours of the garden are no longer available. Click here to view more of Davie's work.
John Lincoln returns with the seventh installment of his series on the history of Cullinan (click here to view the series index). It focuses on some of the wonderful historic buildings of the town.
Letter written by A Gass to the mine in 1978 about the Presbyterian Church during World War I:
Forgotten men of the Indian Army left their imprint in Observatory, Johannesburg during the early 1900s. Although their story has been largely forgotten and lost to public memory, a monument at the summit of Observatory Ridge honours their memory. This Indian Monument stands as a memorial to Indians who fell in the Anglo-Boer War / South African War of 1899-1902, overlooking the valley where Indians served at a remount camp during the War. Erected soon after the end of hostilities, the Indian War Memorial was launched in the first flush of peace amidst a wave of
Kathy Munro's three part series on the Yeoville Water Tower comes to an end with this piece (click here to view the series index). The article highlights the overall German contribution to early Johannesburg and suggests that the German connection to the Yeoville Water might be a reason why its origins were concealed in 1914/1915.
Below is Part 2 of Kathy Munro's wonderful series on the Yeoville Water Tower (click here to view series index). The piece takes an in-depth look at the historic blueprint and reveals the secrets of the water tower's origins. The article first appeared in the December 2018 issue of Architecture SA. Thank you to Paul Kotze for giving us permission to publish and to Gail Wilson for the use of some of her magnificent photographs.
It took a house plan to get Marc Latilla hooked on history.
The pony-tailed author, DJ and music professional recently launched his book, Johannesburg Then and Now. It’s a treasure for Joburg enthusiasts: a leisurely stroll down what the early gold prospectors built on a stretch of veld over 130 years ago, juxtaposed against what those buildings and sites look like now. The Then and Now books are a worldwide series, profiling cities like Melbourne, Rome, Charleston, and Cape Town.
If you walk down 11th Street in Parkmore, a short distance from the Sandton CBD, you may see some bright orange signage announcing 'Saks's Corner 1949'. Considering Sandton City was only built in the early 1970s there is certainly a story to be told. The following piece was written by Juliet Marais Louw in 1982 and reveals the history behind one of Sandton's oldest shops. Unfortunately the original structure has been demolished but the memory of the famous landmark lives on.
