Kathy Munro

This must be a first in the Johannesburg blue plaque collection... a bus shelter has received a heritage marker. I last wrote about the condition of the bus shelter in 2014 when it had been left derelict and was in a sad state of neglect. There has been a complete turnaround with the bus shelter now restored and celebrated as a unique item of Johannesburg heritage. This is a bus stop with a difference.

The restored bus station (Eric Itzkin)

I am delighted to share the news that the City of Johannesburg has unveiled a new blue plaque for a bus shelter which is located at the corner of Tudhope Avenue and Louis Botha Avenue. The inscription reads:

Built by the Johannesburg City Engineers Department in 1934, this is a rare example of quality granite mine stone masonry and craftsmanship evident in so many of the City’s projects of that period. The bus stop served the trolley buses that ran along Louis Botha Avenue to Norwood, Orange Grove, Bellevue and Sydenham. The trolley bus system closed in 1986. The chlorination chamber below is the earliest known water purification chamber in Johannesburg.

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The City of Johannesburg and Johannesburg Heritage Foundation honoured Brixton with a blue plaque in April 2024 for one of the earliest wood and iron buildings. This is the first of a series of blue plaques for this popular community-minded suburb revealing a growing awareness that many sites and places are worthy of heritage recognition.

Blue plaque (Kathy Munro)

Remarkably this shop-cum dwelling had already been declared a National Monument in 1983, by the old National Monuments Council. After 1994, the Council was dissolved in favour of a new provincial system but the old NMC badge has been preserved.

Old National Monument plaque (Kathy Munro)

The objective of a Johannesburg blue plaque is to encourage an appreciation of local heritage properties. A blue plaque is a symbol of civil society recognition.

Brixton was surveyed in 1902 for the Auckland Park Real Estate Company on land that had been part of the Braamfontein farm. It was named for its counterpart, the suburb of Brixton...

Malcolm Freeland was a passionate Johannesburg heritage man backed by his education, his professional training and experiences, his family background, life for a century in his fine heritage home and in his commitment to and work for the Parktown and Westcliff Heritage Trust (today the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation).

Malcolm was born in Johannesburg in 1920. He was educated at St John’s College and matriculated in 1938. He studied architecture at Wits University and graduated in 1948 with a Bachelor of Architecture. He also studied town planning and worked in London for a couple of years in the early 1950s. Malcolm returned to Johannesburg and was employed by the Johannesburg City Council in the City Engineers Department. He was an architect and town planner and at one point in his career was responsible for Johannesburg's aesthetic standards as the Aesthetics Officer for the Johannesburg City Council, a task he found singularly frustrating.

St John's College

Malcolm maintained professional membership of several bodies. He was an associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects, a member of the South African Institute of Architects, a member of the South African Institute of Town and Regional Planning and was a fellow of the British Royal Society of Arts. He was a...

On Friday 26th April, Jeppe High School for Boys in Kensington celebrated its heritage with the unveiling of two blue plaques and a superbly developed heritage route. They hosted a homecoming reunion celebration for old boys of the school (for all boys who had matriculated in the years ending with a '4'). The jubilee weekend also showed off student rugby at its best with a series of top games between Jeppe and King Edward VII School in matches hosted on Jeppe’s rugby fields. Beautifully attired young men in boaters and smart black and white blazers were the hosts to escort guests around the school. Good manners, raised hats and authentic smiles are the mark of the Jeppe boys, soon to step out into the world as Jeppe men.

Jeppe Boys as well as Jeppe Girls (also situated on Roberts Avenue) Kensington are both schools proud of their heritage and history. Both have produced fine school histories and both schools now have blue plaques.

Jeppe Koppie archaeological finds on display

There was a marvellous display of early archaeological / prehistoric finds of stone hand tools. These were examples of tools and implements of unknown people who must have inhabited the Jeppe koppie tens of thousands of years ago. It has been a painstaking task for Mrs Jean Meintjes, one of the school’s administrative staff members, to gather, study and catalogue these finds but there is rich enthusiasm and a considerable display of knowledge in evidence. It certainly made me want to explore the...

Val is a tiny place with a big history. It has a permanent population of eight. The Easter weekend was chosen for the 2024 Boer and Brit Day festivities. This annual cultural festival of all things Boer and British circa 1900 is the brainchild of Rita Britz who owns the Val Hotel and most other old properties in the small town.

Val Hotel (Kathy Munro)

The small hamlet of Val comes alive once a year when it hosts its unique Boer and Brit Day. The event has been on the calendar for Boer War history buffs since 2007. Rita’s efforts are strongly backed by military historian and Johannesburg lawyer David Scholtz. The festival takes place in late March or early April as it was in April 1902 that Val earned a unique place in South African history (read on to find out why).

The main railway line runs through the town and the dominant structures on the landscape are the giant grain silos. Surprisingly a train on its way to the coast rumbles through. It is the proverbial one-horse town, but not on its day of celebration when the farmers and their families arrive on horseback in their four by fours, towing horseboxes and farm trucks. Word has spread and a few hundred people gather to enjoy a festival and fair on an autumn day in the...

Heidelberg was my destination in late February 2024 to be the guest of the Moti family at the Old Station - today Heidelberg’s principal museum. I had last been to Heidelberg when I attended my first Heritage Association of South Africa symposium and met Tony Burisch.

Tony is the driving force behind Heidelberg heritage’s blue plaque movement. Over the years we have become firm friends in the cause of heritage. Tony and Bouwe Wiersma have put Heidelberg on the heritage map. So once again it was a pilgrimage to the town, now wearing my hat as the chairperson of  HASA.

Old photo of the Heidelberg Railway Station (Heidelberg Heritage Association)

We and other dignitaries had all gathered for the the unveiling of a bust and plaque to celebrate a moment in Heidelberg’s history and a memory precious to the Moti family. We arrived to remember the service offered by a Gujariti businessman, a Mr Moti (the grandfather of Dayanaod Moti) to Gandhi when sometime in 1908 Gandhi was detained when passing through Heidelberg by train, for his lack of a pass to allow Indians and other Asiatic people to travel between the then separate post Boer War republics. It was one incident in a momentous year for Gandhi...

On 28th February, a remarkable reunion took place between architect and client - Saitowitz the architect and Brebnor the client, at the newest of Wits University’s properties. The event was a workshop at a rural retreat named Brebnor House at the President Park Agricultural Holdings in Midrand. We were at a house that dated back to 1976 when a young Stanley Saitowitz became the architect for the young Linda and Scott Brebnor who wanted to build a home of their own.

Scott Brebnor House or Transvaal House (Stanley Saitowitz - Natoma Architects)

Some 48 years later, architect and client, now both older men with full lives and careers met again at a Wits symposium to reflect and share their vision, the creative process and their experiences shaped by the construction of this now iconic house. The audience of Wits academics and colleagues were the invited guests to share a poignant encounter. It was a day for listening to the key presenters, good conversation, and posing questions. The hopes and new aspirations  of younger people raised some interesting questions and lively discussion.

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Visiting Westcliff is always a treat. I feel like a Johannesburg time traveller when driving north along Jan Smuts Avenue and turning left at The Valley Road. In October and November it is a riot of purple when the jacaranda trees and the creeping bougainvillea blossom. E. M. Macphail, who wrote the charming book The Story of Westcliff in 1986, makes it her quest to find the right descriptive words for Westcliff. She comes up with “rich, elite, chic, wealthy, posh, privileged, stuffy, spacious, green seclusion”.

Westcliff is still regarded as a luxury suburb of choice for the affluent families of Johannesburg. It is a suburb of mansions, large stands, wide roads, secluded greenery, beautiful gardens, imposing gates, aged trees and high walls. Westcliff is one of the most beautiful suburbs of the City. It is a jewel of a garden suburb on a prime Witwatersrand ridge and has a unique charm.

Ye Rokkes, an iconic Westcliff mansion designed by the firm Aburrow and Treeby in 1902.

There are many Baker houses in Westcliff. Baker and his partners brought Kent and the spirit of the English home counties to the ridges of the burgeoning town but built with the honey-hewed kopje rocks found on site.

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In late October 2023, friends and family gathered in Johannesburg to celebrate Flo Bird's 80th birthday. Flo has been a tireless campaigner for Johannesburg and South Africa's heritage for several decades. Below is the speech delivered by Kathy Munro to mark the big occasion.

Flo and your family, welcome and to all our heritage community, we welcome you. Today we have the extraordinary privilege of coming together to celebrate a momentous occasion - an 80th birthday.

But this is no ordinary 80th birthday; it's an opportunity to honour a life that has left an indelible mark on Johannesburg and our heritage community.

Flo Bird unveiling a plaque on Doveton Road, Parktown

Flo is a born and bred Johannesburger. She has always lived in Parktown and is descended from Johannesburg pioneers. She has spent her entire adult life committed to her city – researching and writing about Johannesburg, She founded the Parktown and Westcliff Heritage Trust and in 2012 she founded the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation. She is still engaged in the heritage fight and still sits on the Joint Plans Committee - its meetings are a fixed date in her calendar.

It is due to her efforts that we do not have another motorway slicing through Parktown, that at least...

A land surveyor of distinction and an early pioneer of South African satellite geodesy, Werner Kirchhoff, passed away at the age of 92 in August 2023.

Werner, born in Germany in 1931, was the son of Peter Kirchhoff and Margarete Bose. Two years later his family left Germany and immigrated to South Africa, settling in Johannesburg in 1934. Between 1936 and 1941, he attended the German school in Edith Cavell Street, Hillbrow and from 1942 to 1947, the German school in Pretoria (the Deutsche International Schule) and Pretoria Boys' High School.

Werner grew up in an artist’s home. His father (with three other artists: Hennie Potgieter, Laurika Postma and Frikkie Kruger) was commissioned to sculpt the Voortrekker Monument Hall friezes from 1941-1946. Here, the young Werner acted as the model for the young hero figure of Dirkie Uys, a young Paul Kruger at Vegkop and a surveyor in the Church of the Vow frieze. The latter post was prophetic indeed as surveying became Werner’s profession.

Werner posed for these figures in the Voortrekker Monument Hall friezes (Russel Scott)

The Kirchhoff family lived at Harmony Hall (the converted artists’ studio for the work of the four artists on...