James Cope-Christie

The now celebrated English architect James Alfred Cope-Christie (1870-1953) was active in Johannesburg between 1902 and approximately 1908. He was in the city for a relatively short time but made and left a legacy of three houses that have survived to the present. The three homes are in Parktown, Waverley and Yeoville.

House Hains in Yeoville was the earliest with the plans dated 1903. House Page in Waverley followed a year later and in 1905-6 Cope-Christie designed Dolobran which still stands at the corner of Oxford and Victoria Avenue in Parktown.

House Page (William Martinson)

Dolobran (Lucille Davie)

Today House Hains shows all the signs of Yeoville decay and neglect over a 25 year period. It is a substantial detached house. Its history reveals that it was a house of far greater substance and importance than its current position, somewhat cramped on a single stand. It deserves a second glance and a documentation of its architectural history.

Cope-Christie was the subject of a pamphlet by Dennis Radford and Peter Jackson in the 1990 series The Architects of Parktown (part of the Parktown Collection); there is coverage of his work on the Artefacts website (click here...

A few years ago, the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation organised a rare tour inside the iconic Parktown mansion Dolobran. Journalist and Johannesburg enthusiast, Lucille Davie was there and compiled the wonderful article below (originally published in the Saturday Star on 3 January 2015). Click here to view more of Davie's work.

For so long I have been infatuated with this house, peeping from between the trees and tall bamboo at the start of Oxford Road. That whimsical, eclectic mansion Dolobran. Recently I took a rare public tour of the house, which stares defiantly across the freeway at Herbert Baker’s more staid but still grand Northwards.

Northwards (The Heritage Portal)

Baker, Cecil John Rhodes’s favourite architect, has left his impressive footprint in the city with homes and churches dotted around the suburbs, as well as his own home, Stonehouse, not far from Northwards. Baker’s buildings are scattered around the country too, including the magisterial Union Buildings. 

Stonehouse (The Heritage Portal)

Pierneef Painting of the...