A different view on current affairs & history
The Port Elizabeth Bowling Club, the oldest Bowling Club in South Africa, was founded on the 14th August 1882 and is located on the St George’s Park grounds. The blog is based almost solely on the St George’s Park website and the book The Social Chronical of Port Elizabeth to the end of 1949 by Margaret Harradine.
Main picture: St George’s Park in 1900. The Club House of the PE Bowling Club
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Given that there are no longer any residents who live in close proximity to the church, there are few parking facilities in the area and there are hardly any parishioners who attend regularly, what is the future prognosis of this icon of Port Elizabeth? Naturally, I am biased because my great-great-grandfather was its first pastor but is society in general not able to appreciate that this building is integral to the history of Port Elizabeth.
It will serve Port Elizabeth well to remember that it is not a church, probably in dire financial difficulties, that has to be saved, but a treasure of the city itself.
This blog is the history of this venerable institution.
Main picture: St. Mary’s after being reconstructed in 1896 but before the construction of the UBS building in Main Street
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