Sandton

An architect from Scotland, I joined a local established conservation and restoration practice, Robert Hurd and Partners, Edinburgh in 1983 on leaving University. The practice had pioneered in historic conservation work, castles, country houses and Edinburgh’s Old Town. While absorbing the traditional side of architecture and indeed becoming a reporter for the Scottish Architectural Heritage Society, I successfully applied myself to various new build design competitions and the practice reputation and portfolio expanded. I became a partner in 1988. Our expertise was being able to retain or incorporate large new buildings into historic environments.

In 1991, I met my wife, Cecile, a South African, resigned from the practice and moved to Pretoria, managing to get a position with the embryonic practice Boogertman, Krige and Blignaut. Initially based in Pretoria, I commuted between the two offices (Pretoria and Joburg) designing, illustrating and managing presentations in the boyant ‘New South Africa’ environment.

Around 1992, BKB were invited, as outsiders to participate in a design competition for a vacant site, off Fredman Drive, Sandton, then owner by Momentum Health. I then effectively moved to the Bryanston office, managed by partner Andre Krige. Andre had been an early exponent of CADD and had developed unique software for Autocad and was very much into using the new 3D CADD modelling presentation tools.

Very much left to run the competition submission, I envisaged a new towered skyline for a new Sandton, very much in contrast to the concrete slab tower of old Sandton City.

[[{"fid":"16535","view_mode":"media_adaptive","fields":{"format":"media_adaptive","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Old Sandton City...

The concept of a ‘Lido’ is not familiar to most contemporary South Africans, least of all the idea of one situated in Johannesburg. However, in the 1930s the city might have had its own Lido – right in the heart of what is now Sandton!

The word ‘lido’ is Italian, with its origins in the Latin ‘litus’, meaning ‘a beach’ or ‘shore’ (giving us the English word ’littoral’). The world-renowned Lido is the Lido di Venezia – a barrier island off Venice with a sandy beach that has been a bathing resort and a place of entertainment for a very long time. The annual Venice Film Festival is held there. In the 19th century, the Venetian Lido was a fashionable holiday destination for the rich, particularly from England and the rest of Europe, and apparently its attractions and sophistication were the envy of seaside resorts elsewhere.

Bathing in the Venice Lido by John Lavery

So popular was the idea of a Lido, the very word resonating with notions of luxury, relaxation, sunshine, and wealth, that Lidos sprang up all over Europe in the late-19th century, particularly in England – and not only at the seaside. Before the age of cheap and easy travel, urbanites who craved a beach experience could find one inland. These were especially...

In 1994, the article below appeared in the Sandton Historical Association Annual Magazine. It provides a glimpse of primary health care in Witkoppen, now an outlying area of Johannesburg but previously part of Sandton. The author, Dr Margaret Fouche, one of the doctors who worked at the clinic, allowed the Association to use the material for the article from her longer and more detailed history of the clinic. 

Together with the article by Agnes Kulenkampff on Witkoppen School, published in the Association’s Magazine of 1978, and reproduced on the Heritage Portal (click here to read), readers will gain a sense of the deleterious conditions of life for Africans in our region in past decades, but also of the strength of volunteer assistance and contributions.

The early years

The Witkoppen Clinic has been in operation for nearly fifty years, and it seems appropriate to write an account of it while some of the original workers can help with their recollections. Since the Witkoppen School and the Clinic have always been connected, and since the School preceded the founding of the Clinic a brief account of the school's beginning is given here.

Sketch of the Witkoppen School buildings (via the Annual Magazine of the Sandton Historical Association)

The Witkoppen School began in 1942 when Mr...

In 1978, the following article was published in the Annual Magazine of the Sandton Historical Association and has been lightly edited for re-publication. It was written by Agnes Kulenkampff (née Pedlar), an enthusiastic contributor to the Sandton Historical Association for many years. A librarian at the Transvaal Education Department, Agnes died very young in March 1991. 

Sandton was founded as a separate municipality in 1969. The area is now within the enlarged city of Johannesburg. See also 

See also: Memorial to President John F Kennedy in Sandton

Sandton is a young municipality. Most of its 18 modern schools were built for the children of white residents who had settled fairly recently in the area. Shortly after the end of the South African War, Rivonia Primary School (the successor to Rietfontein 15 School) was the first to instruct the children of the outlying small farmers. Witkoppen Farm School was the next, in 1927, to try to spread the use of the three Rs.

An Englishman named George Mason farmed along the old Pretoria Road just past Fourways in what was a very rural and sparsely populated area. Mason asked his maid, Selina Moshimane, to sound out the wishes of the local people and they welcomed the idea of opening a school. Mason consequently donated about two acres to the “local native people”. The land was bequeathed in perpetuity to them in his Will.

The Anglican Board of Management controlled the new school because Africans could not own land in “white” areas...

The recent article by Kathy Munro on Liliesleaf farm and Rivonia (click here to read) had me digging out and reviewing some notes I made a while back.

This Robinson family, like many at that time, came to South Africa when then family head, Peter Robinson was sent out from England to take charge of the local branch of the large company he was employed by in London. Scaffolding Great Britain (SGB) promoted Peter Robinson to Managing Director of SGB South Africa and he arrived in the country in mid-1959, to be followed by the rest of his family and his own, by now widowed, mother. Eldest son Howard, then aged 14, convinced the family to let him fly out by BOAC Bristol Britannia while the rest of the family sailed from Southampton in December 1959 on the Union Castle Lines ship Stirling Castle. Those who enjoyed the sea trip were Grandma Robinson, Mary (wife of Peter), Mark (12 yearold second son), Angela (8)* and the family cat Midge! ** First landfall in South Africa was at Cape Town on New Year’s Day 1960 and the Coon Carnival was a colourful if slightly bewildering introduction to the country. We weren't sure if this was what we would see every day!

Old...

September is Heritage Month but it is a downer when the news comes through that the museum and heritage site Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia has closed its doors permanently. The news of closure announced by the CEO and founder of the Liliesleaf Trust, Nic Wolpe, son of Harold Wolpe, comes as a surprise. It is inconceivable that this unusual centre and museum should disappear off the well-trodden tourist route of Johannesburg. Liliesleaf, like the Apartheid Museum (also now closed but on a temporary basis), is a must visit site of history if you want to understand South Africa’s history of the last century. Liliesleaf was once a farm and was the centre piece in Liberation History.

One can argue that Liliesleaf is simply a casualty of Covid. Museums suffer when no one goes out and foreign tourists stop coming to South Africa. All we could hope was that the wondrous treasures that so many galleries and museums hold are protected and cared for during this long inactivity. Museums and galleries only live when people visit and are curious about the knowledge therein. There are over forty Museums in Johannesburg and all have suffered during the past 18 months when doors closed temporarily as the country went into lockdown.

In May 2021 museum stakeholders gathered at Constitutional Hill to launch the Johannesburg Museum Manifesto highlighting the plight of all museums. The Manifesto, drawing attention to the crisis facing so many museums, was posted on The Heritage Portal (click here to view).

[[{"fid":"5809","view_mode":"media_adaptive","fields":{"format":"media_adaptive","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Constitution Hill from...

The township of Parkmore was established in 1904 – making it one of the oldest northern suburbs in the Johannesburg Metro. Parkmore was proclaimed in the aftermath of the South African War (1899-1902). The ending of hostilities brought with it the expectation of economic stability and a rise in property prices in what had become the British colony of the Transvaal.

Sketch plan showing position of Parkmore

The area that once comprised the independent town of Sandton, north of Johannesburg, originally consisted of four large farms that settling Voortrekkers had taken up, displacing the African communities that had used the area for many centuries before them. One of these was Zandfontein (No. 1, later No. 42 IR), part of which was to become Parkmore. The whole farm had been owned by Jan Christoffel Esterhuysen who, in the late 1840s, had arrived from Natal with his large family. After Britain had annexed Natal in 1843, he and others found themselves under the same uncongenial British rule from which they had intended to escape in the Cape Colony and so they trekked again.

[[{"fid":"1393","view_mode":"media_adaptive","fields":{"format":"media_adaptive","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Esterhuysen Monument - Heritage Portal - 2013"},"link_text":null,"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"media_adaptive","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Esterhuysen Monument - Heritage Portal - 2013"}},"attributes":{"title":"Esterhuysen Monument - Heritage Portal - 2013","height":889,"width":1187,"style":"height: 374px; width: 500px; display: block; margin-left: auto...

The South African Constitution of 1996 introduced new forms of local government and radically changed the map of governance structures throughout the country. As has been the case since 1910, the central and provincial governments play a controlling role. However, at a local level – towns, cities and even townships and suburbs – remain arenas in which citizens are empowered to make their voices heard directly, as happens almost daily with street protests about inadequate service delivery. Local autonomy and responsibility have been crucial to popular expression, and, in this regard, it is salutary to recall the emergence of Randburg and Sandton as independent towns in 1959 and 1969 respectively.

Peri-Urban Settlements in the Johannesburg Region

The area to the north of Johannesburg had been settled mainly during the 1920s and 1930s, when, as a consequence of drought, economic depression, and industrialisation, people fled the impoverished countryside hoping for employment and a better life in urban areas – many referred to it as the ‘Second Great Trek’. As remains the situation in our era, many newcomers settled on the periphery of towns, often living under insanitary conditions without services such as roads, electricity, health services, water, and sanitation.

In the 1930s Johannesburg was the city most impacted by the enormous increase in population and in 1936 appointed a commission under Richard Feetham (1874-1965), once a member of Lord Milner’s ‘Kindergarten’ after the South African War with responsibility for Johannesburg, by the 1930s a prominent judge and chairman of numerous high-profile...

We are honoured to publish a portion of the St David's Jubilee Book 'A Courageous Journey' revealing the fascinating early history of this well known Johannesburg school. Unless otherwise stated all photos are from the book. Copies of 'A Courageous Journey' can be ordered from Julie Egenrieder, researcher/archivist at St David's - egenriederj@STDavids.co.za.

It must have seemed a strange place to start a school. The site was outside the city limits, a mile from the nearest bus terminus. The neighbours were mainly smallholders farming fruit and flowers, milk and chickens for the burgeoning city of Johannesburg. Orchards grew where Sandton City now sprawls; Benmore Gardens was Montague Simpson’s Benmore Farm, famous for its herd of prizewinning Ayrshire cattle. Close by was the Inanda Club, home to the Johannesburg Polo Club, but also home to the Rand Hunt that had held its first meet but a few years before, riding over farms and open land. The old farm, Zyferfontein, which had once belonged to Sir Edward Solomon, had by this time been proclaimed as the residential township of Inanda, but it was thinly settled.

Old photo of Benmore Farm (Wagon-Tracks and Orchards)

Benmore Farm plaque unveiling at Crawford...

In the article below, journalist Lucille Davie looks at the painful yet triumphant journeys of the struggle personalities captured at Liliesleaf. The article was originally published on the City of Johannesburg's website on 6 June 2008. Click here to view more of Davie's work.

On hearing that they had got life sentences, Denis Goldberg shouted: "Life! Life is wonderful!"
 
And life was wonderful on that day, 12 July 1964, because the Rivonia trialists had expected the death penalty, but Judge Quartus de Wet handed down four life sentences to each of the men instead.
 
"All rationality aside, and for all our preparedness to die for freedom in South Africa, we started smiling in disbelief, at first, and complete relief as it sunk in that the judge said he would not impose the maximum penalty, even though it would be an appropriate sentence," says Goldberg now, 44 years later. "By the time he had finished speaking we were openly laughing. In the end most of us got four life sentences, but in the end you can only serve one of them!"

Denis Goldberg

It meant that they would live, but spend up to 27 years of their lives in jail, not seeing their children grow up, not seeing their wives struggling to hold things together without their husbands, or dealing with harassment by the...