Gauteng

During Pretoria’s first 20 years of existence it had no public parks. The only spaces accessible to the public at the time were the Church and Market squares.

As early as 1874, the space where Burgers Park is located today, was allocated to become Pretoria’s first botanical garden.

Today a declared heritage site, the park was only officially named Burgers Park during 1894.  

The first 10 years (1874 to 1884)

During 1874, the then ZAR president Burgers followed through on Preller’s proposal from 3 years earlier for Pretoria to establish a botanical garden by presenting this proposal to his Volksraad (House of Assembly). This proposal was approved on 8 October 1874. The Volksraad in turn offered 18 stands in Pretoria for this purpose. These stands were based between Jacob Maré, van der Walt and St. Andries Street (Renamed to Jeff Masemola, Lilian Ngoyi and Thabo Sehume Streets respectively).

Picture postcard circa 1905 showing St. Andries Street, looking north, with the park on the left hand side. The fence seems to be a wooden structure and maybe the same fence erected by Bourke & co during 1896. Card published by Braune & Levy.

Other than the donation of these...

She is the daughter of the City of Gold and she is gorgeous. Sandton is definitely coming of age with landmark buildings around every corner. If you love her during the day, you should see her at night! Property owners and their lighting experts have created quite a show when the sun goes down. Below are a few photos taken by The Heritage Portal team to encourage you to explore the city at night.

Sandton City and the Michaelangelo Towers. Note the two lovebirds on the bottom right. (The Heritage Portal)

The iconic Sandton City (The Heritage Portal)

When Sandton City was reclad a few years ago it received some brilliant lighting and a wonderful spire (The Heritage Portal)

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The Drum Café has established itself as the foremost entertainment destination in drumming. For more than a decade the Drum Café has successfully offered corporate team building drumming events and performances. Its shows have gone round South Africa and been taken abroad. Drumming has become something of a South African export.

Hardwood and cowhide - Handcrafted  traditional drums on display in the museum (Kathy Munro)

CEO and creator of the Drum Café, Warren Lieberman, continues to do all this and is now adding a new dimension - a museum combined with live performances. It’s something new on the Johannesburg scene and will be opening in July 2018. Here is your chance to see and experience drums for Africa but that is just the start.

The museum of African indigenous musical instruments is located at 157 Jan Smuts Avenue (close to the Kim Sacks Gallery) Parkwood, Johannesburg and a few steps away from the traffic lights at the Chester / Jan Smuts intersection). This is a museum that celebrates traditional African music. The Drum Café and Museum offers the visitor the chance to study the collection of African instruments and enjoy a musical experience in drumming. It is interactive, engaged, experimental and fun. The...

A Peep Into My Life, The Memoir of William Eastwood was reproduced in 2016, 82 years after it was initially published. This was done at the request of Eastwood's granddaughter Mary Drabbe, who is now proudly distributing his original work. Photographs and some relevant research has been added by compiler and editor Jennifer Els.

Mary reveals how her grandmother was so tired of hearing all the stories of her husband’s life that she persuaded him to write them all down. The reproduction of this memoir brings a fascinating story to a new audience. It was written by a man who came to Johannesburg in 1887, at the age of twenty-five, having been born in Bradford in the United Kingdom.

In the first section of the book, Eastwood records events of his childhood in Britain, the difficulties of finding employment and then of his adventures over a two-year period, when he travelled to and explored places like Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, the Fiji Islands and New York.

Eastwood's recollections of a three-month sea voyage in 1883 provide a vivid account of the conditions and dangers of travel on a sailing ship at that time. He returned to England after his adventures but on his father's urging soon set out for South Africa like so many others at that time.

He initially arrived in Potchefstroom where he stayed with his brother Phil who was working there. Both then and at a later stage, when he was employed to operate a three-stamp-battery, readers get a glimpe of...

In the article below, journalist Lucille Davie tells the story of Taffy Long who was executed for a murder that took place during the 1922 Rand Revolt. The piece was originally published on the City of Johannesburg's website on 5 July 2002. Click here to view more of Davie's work. The image above shows Fordsburg Market Square during the Revolt.

One of South Africa’s biggest funeral processions – 10 000 people – was held in the 1920s for a man widely believed to be innocent, hanged by the government of General Jan Smuts.
 
The man was 31-year-old Samuel Alfred Long, nicknamed Taffy, who, after two trials, was found guilty of murdering Pieter Marais during an uprising in Johannesburg that saw the city at war with its citizens, in the 1922 Miners’ Strike. The hanging took place in November 1922, and the 10 000 people marched to Brixton Cemetery where Taffy was buried.

Old photo of Taffy Long

 
Taffy came to symbolise the workers’ unhappiness with the mine owners at the way they handled a drop in the price of gold in 1921 – by dropping wages and employing more black miners at cheaper wages.
 
Many thought Taffy was innocent, but in the tensions of the time he was an Englishman who had allegedly killed an Afrikaner. The irony was that the Afrikaans government of Smuts was also killing Afrikaners, siding against them...

On Saturday morning 16th June 2018, I attended a Johannesburg East Plans committee meeting. Our work is about heritage preservation while considering appropriate changes and new developments. Isabella Pingle, the representative of the Kensington Ratepayers and Residents Association, placed a photo before us showing the damage recently done to the Bez Valley World War I Memorial. The Memorial has effectively been destroyed despite the recent efforts of the local councillor Carlos Da Rocha and the community to clean the small park. In late 2014 an effort was made by City Parks, the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation and others to revamp the memorial. It is one of those Johannesburg heritage spots that has been hanging on by its finger nails. The challenges of preservation have overwhelmed the City of Johannesburg.

What is left of the Bez Valley War Memorial (Isabella Pingle)

This small local memorial is located opposite Darras Centre on the boundary edge of the suburbs of Bezuidenhout Valley and Kensington. The address is the corner triangle where 5th Street, 9th Avenue and Kitchener Avenue intersect. The  memorial is a block away from the main thoroughfare - Albertina Sisulu Road. It is a triangular patch of park land that falls within the orbit of the City Parks of Johannesburg.

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Rudolf Gottfried Steger was born in Germany on 11 March 1871. He left his country of birth aged 10 to attend school in Switzerland and then went on to complete four years of religious studies in Rome. Whilst in Switzerland, he also trained as a medical assistant at the Red Cross in Geneva – a skill that would later come in handy.

Steger arrived in South Africa during 1894 and became a naturalised burger (citizen) whilst based in Paarl during 1896. He established his first studio in Pretoria during 1898 aged 27.

During his 21-year photographic activity in Pretoria, Steger seems to have been based at five different studios, namely Schoeman, Koch, Pretorius, 201 Church and 333 Market Streets. Steger also reproduced many old photographs previously taken of Pretoria.

Nachtmaal on the Church Square at Pretoria during 1893. An example of a reproduced photograph by Steger. It is not clear who the initial photographer was – It would not have been Steger.

Steger was one of several photographers who competed to photograph President Kruger. During May 1900, Steger submitted a £3 invoice for 2 dozen cabinet format photographs he took of President Kruger. The author has not come across any of these photographs to date. From Steger’s letters...

A short distance from the entrance to the Market Theatre is the famous jazz club Kippies. In the article below, Joburg journalist and explorer Lucille Davie reveals the story behind the building and the man that gave it its name. The piece was originally published on the City of Joburg's website on 13 September 2002.

Most people know that jazz club Kippies in Newtown was named after saxophone player Kippie Moeketsi. But what they don't know is that the building that houses Kippies was never there in the first place.
 
Kippies is modelled on an Edwardian toilet, the original of which was built around 200 metres slightly north of Kippies in 1913, the same time the building, which also houses the Museum Africa, was built.
 
It's a cosy venue, its walls painted sky blue. Its original old section has attractive small arched windows, and a small cupola or domed roof. The classic architecture of the Edwardian toilet was copied because it blended in with the neighbouring market building.

Edwardian Toilet before restoration (The Heritage Portal)

A restored Edwardian Toilet takes its place...

In the article below, journalist Lucille Davie tells the emotional story of the death of Hastings Ndlovu. Ndlovu is believed to be the first person killed during the Soweto uprising that began on 16 June 1976. The piece was originally published on the City of Johannesburg's website on 10 January 2005. Click here to view more of Davie's work.

The doctor interrupted his mid-morning tea break, rushed into the casualty section and was greeted by "a grisly scene". Lying on the stretcher was the body of a young boy dressed in school uniform, his head covered in blood, a gaping bullet wound exposing his brain.
 
The doctor describes what he saw: ". . . a bullet wound to one side of his head, blood and brains spilling out of a large exit wound on the other side, the gurgle of death in his throat. Only later would I learn his name: Hastings Ndlovu".
 
The doctor was Malcolm Klein, now an anaesthetist living and working in Tampa, Florida. The boy, 15-year-old* Hastings Ndlovu, was believed to be the first child to be shot in Orlando West in confrontations with the police on 16 June, 1976, the day Soweto exploded in violent uprisings against the apartheid government.
 
Another boy, 12-year-old Hector Pieterson, has come to symbolise the day. "The World" newspaper photographer Sam Nzima was on hand to capture the unconscious Pieterson being carried by pupil Mbuyisa Makhubo, with Antoinette Sithole, Pieterson's sister, running alongside, after Pieterson was shot by the...

The recent Jozi Walks weekend brought a new verve and vibe to Hillbrow. Gerard Bester and his team of extraordinary young people of Hillbrow showed off the good, the funky and the dramatic side of Hillbrow life. It was a Hillbrow experience of note! Both the Saturday and the Sunday tours were fully booked. It is a first for the Theatre Community Centre and for the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation.

Where did the initiative start? Gerard Bester of the Hillbrow Theatre Project at the Hillbrow Theatre Community Centre initiated a partnership with the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation for the 2018 Jozi Walks (promoted by the Johannesburg Development Agency). Gerard met Flo Bird and me (representing the JHF) for a coffee and our imagination was fired by the possibility of a new and inspiring partnership. Last year the JHF offered an Orange Grove / Maryvale walking tour but this year we decided to work on the Hillbrow project. We were all delighted when the JDA selected our proposal. Flo and I joined the Hillbrow community team led by Erica Lüttich and Gerard to plan a route and unearth the history of the area. The stars of the project were the young people of Hillbrow.

Tour Guides lead the way (Erica Lüttich)

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