Western Cape

The Victoria & Alfred Waterfront is one of the great South African adaptive reuse case studies. Below is an in depth article on the work conducted during the first phase of this landmark project (completed 1990/1). The piece appeared in the 1992 edition of Restorica, the journal of the Simon van der Stel Foundation (today the Heritage Association of South Africa). Thank you to the University of Pretoria (copyright holders) for giving us permission to publish.

The establishment of the historic link between the City of Cape Town and the sea is regarded as a key factor in securing the viability of the city in environmental and cultural terms. The restoration of these historic linkages, the retention of the working harbour, the rehabilitation of individual buildings at the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront (V&AW) and the accommodation of adaptive uses are all regarded as conservation activities in the broader sense and thus worthy of the 1991 Cape Times Centenary Medal for conservation and building rehabilitation. 

The Waterfront has also received the Cape Institute of Architects conservation award for the Pierhead & Portswood Precincts while the number of declared national monuments at the Waterfront has risen from three to eighteen.

The V&AW project provides the forum for organised planning action to restore the physical and cultural ties between city and harbour and the means for a variety of development agencies and professional disciplines to operate towards a widely based common goal.

This symbiotic relationship between shared cultural values and goals and the physical framework established...

Lion Battery is a richly layered historical, social, architectural, aesthetic, scientific and technological landscape. The battery and its historical layering was influenced by significant international events. It is today the site from where Cape Town’s famous noon gun is fired from. Construction started in 1888 and was completed in 1890. By June 1890 both No. 1 and No. 2 emplacements were ready for the mounting of 9 inch RML Guns. All work was done by pick and shovel.

Construction ca. 1890.

Russian expansion in Afghanistan started in the 1870s. This raised concerns that Britain’s domination of the Indian Ocean would be compromised. Concern at the Cape manifested itself in a cartoon in the Lantern on 23 March 1878 with the Russian Bear threatening the maiden labelled ‘Cape Colony’.

Lion Battery ca. 1898

In 1884 Russian troops occupied Merv on the northern border of Afghanistan. A year later they crossed the border, attacked and defeated the Afghan soldiers manning the fortified frontier positions at Pendjeh.

The Imperial Committee on Defence was alarmed that Russia would be in a position to...

[Originally published in 2014] This is the last installment on the Robben Island Garrison Church. Just to recap. In January 2011 Robben Island Museum (RIM) had cash in and wanted to facelift the obvious visible parts of the main street before the proposed visit by World Heritage in February. As this series is about poor research this part really highlights the absolute value of good research. Good research and good observation on site is critical. The two should go hand in hand in a reiterative process.

As heritage consultant I was asked to do the documentation for the permit to SAHRA. Only problem was the tender had already been awarded and the contractor was literally on the same boat as I was wanting to start with the work. Well I’m sure some of you have been in similar circumstances. Last minute permit applications. Because of the imminent World Heritage visit SAHRA stepped in and insisted that an outside conservation architect and the heritage consultant follow the work so as not to delay. Most of the work was going to be just cosmetic with a lick of paint.

Buttress in 2011

Peeling plaster on buttress 2013

The contractor’s...

[Originally published in 2014] The restoration had proceeded reasonably to a conclusion in November 2004 ready for handover from the contractor to the Department of Public Works (DPW) and the Robben Island Museum (RIM). In July the tower and particularly the NE buttress had been partially stripped to the brick, re-plastered and painted. Six months later in early January 2005 the then Heritage Manager for Robben Island reported to SAHRA that the paint had started to blister in places on the tower. By February 2005 the paint had started peeling. Small spots of plaster had also peeled. The architect, contractor and RIM met on site in February of 2005 to determine the extent of the deterioration and its potential cause. A paint specialist was also to hand.

The paint had started to blister in places

The RIM Acting Heritage Manager reported that on their arrival they had started collecting paint and plaster samples for analysis. The samples were to be sent to the CSIR centre at the University of Stellenbosch. The results would be sent to the contractor who would forward these to DPW. The RIM Manager specifically requested a ‘Method Statement’ from the contractor outlining how and when the problem would be dealt with. In January of 2011 when RIM was again preparing for a World Heritage Committee representative on a...

[Originally published in 2014] I ask some very simple questions when doing research and writing subsequent reports for restoration, renovation, repair or, maintenance on a heritage site. What, Where, When, Who, Why and How [the golden six]. I often find that the Why and How is missing or very brief when reports are written before and afterwards. This complicates things of course so reading between the lines becomes an art. The 2004 restoration by all accounts was reasonably well documented and from what can be inferred was researched but the why and how seems to be a little thin. Most of what follows is gained from the photo’s taken at the time of the restoration and the restoration architect's final report [too thin in my opinion]. Regrettably no photos of the before could be traced if any were taken making comparisons difficult.

Planning the restoration and the survey of the Church was started in ca. 2000. By the time the actual work started 4 years later some elements had predictably deteriorated to the extent that they had to be completely replaced, like the main front doors. The what, where, when, who, why and how of this deterioration in 4 years of course has to do with the Department of Public Works but that’s for another day.

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[Originally published in 2014] What happens when poor or no research is done when decisions are made for restoration, repair or maintenance to a heritage site is ably demonstrated by the history of the Garrison Church on Robben Island. For more than 150 years the church was and still is a landmark in the Village Precinct on the Island. In this series of articles I will track the restoration attempts over this period. To understand these it is important to look at the history of the Church, its structure and changes to the structure and associated landscape.

Garrison Church circa 1866

The Church is small in scale and represents an early form of the ‘Cape Gothic’ style. The front entrance and tower faces east with an apse at the back in the west. This is an alignment favoured by many religions and points to the east as life and the west as death. The tower has diagonal buttresses and crenellations. The main walls facing north and south have buttresses that divide these into 3 bays. The windows are round headed and small paned with semi-circular drip moulds. On the inside the balcony, altar, pulpit, pews and open ‘Tudor Style’ roof structure are made from teak. The bell and clock mechanism was added ca. 1872.

The bricks are red clay, soft and friable as the...

Het Posthuys (also known as De Post Huys) in Muizenberg is considered by many to be one of the oldest structures built by European settlers in South Africa. For many years the secret of its age and significance remained hidden until the keen eye of an estate agent and the skills of an historian uncovered the remarkable details in the late 1970s. The article below was written shortly before restoration of the property began (+-1979) and appeared in Restorica, the journal of the Simon van der Stel Foundation (today the Heritage Association of South Africa). Thank you to the University of Pretoria (copyright holders) for giving us permission to publish. Het Posthuys emerged from restoration as a museum which can still be visited today.

Anglo American Corporation is to restore and donate to the nation the oldest existing house in South Africa which was recently discovered in Muizenberg. The building is De Post Huys, a signal blockhouse built as an observation post controlling False Bay and which was completed in 1673, a year before the Castle in Cape Town was occupied. 

Now known as "Stegman's Rus" and situated fifty metres from Muizenberg Station on the main road, the building's history is closely linked to the early history of the Castle and its restoration will be Anglo American's contribution to the 300th anniversary celebrations of the Castle.

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We are very excited to publish this detailed article on the life and achievements of Sir William Hoy. The piece was compiled by Dr Robin Lee of the Hermanus Historical Society (click here to view details of the important work carried out by the society). Main image - Hoy's home in Parktown (Wanooka).

“He stopped the railway coming to Hermanus…” - almost every resident of the town knows this much about Sir William Hoy, and many visitors know it too. Perhaps slightly fewer know that he and his wife are buried on the crown of Hoy’s Koppie, because it was his favourite place to sit in the late afternoon, to survey Walker Bay and plan the next day’s fishing with his ghillie, Danie Woensdreght.

Hoys Koppie (Hermanus History Society)

But William Hoy had a life outside Hermanus that renders his actions about the railway to Hermanus an insignificant part of his life’s story. From his base in the Cape Railways and, later, South African Railways and Harbours (SAR&H) he was drawn into some of the major events of the first 30 years of the 20th century.

In this research report I will first give an overview of his career and then explain his involvement in the following historical developments:

• Organising and often personally undertaking repair of railway lines destroyed by...

We always get excited when we find detailed information on the story behind a blue plaque. The following article about Joachim Nikolaus Von Dessin, whose book collection became the foundation of the first public library in South Africa, was published in a December 1974 edition of The Argus. We stumbled across it in the archives of the Heritage Association of South Africa (HASA).

Of the thousand citizens who have passed the Provincial Administration Building [Cape Town] in the week gone by not more than one or two hundred, I'd wager have noticed the two blue plaques attached to the stone of the structure at the corner of Wale Street and Queen Victoria Street, marking the site of the home in which South Africa's and possibly the world's first free library was put together.

It was at the corner of Wale Street and Garden Street, as Queen Victoria Street was once known, that Joachim Nikolaus Von Dessin, assembled the considerable collection of books and manuscripts which he bequeathed in 1761 to the Nederduitse Gereformeede Kerk on the specific condition that the bequest should be the foundation of a public library for the benefit of everyone.

The bequest also included all his paintings, objects d'art, mathematical and astrological instruments - and a capital sum of 1000 rixdollars, the interest on which was to be used for adding to his collection works dealing with all branches of knowledge.

This capital sum is still in the hands of the Groote Kerk and the interest is paid...

We are honoured to publish this in depth article by Dr Robin Lee on the history of radar in the Overstrand area during World War II. Robin is a retired academic and founder member of the Hermanus History Society which is dedicated to the identification and preservation of heritage sites in the area.

At the beginning of World War II British anti-aircraft guns struggled to bring down even one aircraft each day in the waves of German bombers pounding their cities.  In 1940 it was calculated that the gunners, using conventional metal sights on their guns, had such difficulty in hitting their targets that, on average, 75 000 shells were fired to bring down a single enemy bomber. Each shell contained valuable material that could not be retrieved for use again and manufacturing the shells took the time of hundreds of workers, mainly women.

However, by 1943, aided by a new technology, gunners were expending an average of only 2 000 shells per plane downed. By 1945 this number had dropped into the hundreds. The new technology was RAdio Detection and Ranging, known to everyone as RADAR. It was also very effective in detecting ships and submarines (near or on the surface) and later in the war, became an offensive weapon, when it was mounted on aircraft or ships to focus firepower on targets.

Painting: flak...