A different view on current affairs & history
Blogs on Port Elizabeth
As a child, my family seldom, if ever, went to swim at King’s Beach. My father was a creature of habit and as he was raised at Schoenmakerskop, that is where we swam. Sometime during the 1960’s we were voluntarily taken there. No fights, no fuss. As my father had been the site foreman, the family had been given a special invite to attend. How could my father refuse?
Main picture: Aerial view of the King’s Beach Playground
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The intention of the British government was never to create a town on the coast at Port Elizabeth. Instead it was meant to be a disembarkation point for the Settlers on their travels into the hinterland. The fact that many of the settlers had little, if any, agricultural experience meant that many gravitated back to Port Elizabeth. That is why the town was created at the foot of a hill. That meant that every kloof would ultimately become a major road. So it was with Burial Kloof and later Hymanskloof but now better known as Russell Road.
Main picture: The oldest extant picture of the Stranger’s Location at the top of what was to become Russell Road showing the Chapel of the London Missionary Society in the background.
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The Collegiate Church & Parish of St Mary’s Preface iii
By all accounts, his house is probably the oldest one in Port Elizabeth. As such I would have thought that it would have been declared a National Monument ages ago. On the contrary, nothing has been done. In fact, Victoria House has been in crisis for a number of years. Apparently it was in a reasonable state up until the late 1990s before being occupied by vagrants and prostitutes. In 2005 it was sealed up by the Health and Safety department. In recent years work has been carried out but local activists are concerned that many of the house’s important features have been lost.
How can such a valuable piece of Port Elizabeth’s heritage be allowed to be destroyed?
Main picture: Victoria House at Number 31 Constitution Hill
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Imagine if I told you that 250 years ago a Swedish botanist by the name of Thunberg spotted a herd of 500 buffaloes in the area 20 minutes from the centre of Port Elizabeth called Kragga Kamma. First all the large animals were eliminated and then the smaller ones. Today all that remains is a recently opened small game park in the area. Apart from that, originally the area from Cape Recife to Humewood to Bushy Park was one giant field of sand dunes. Sadly this natural wonder has been replaced with Port Jackson Willows. What size was Port Elizabeth before the arrival of the Settlers?
Some of these developments were beneficial but others were disastrous. It depends upon one’s point of view. But such is the cost of progress.
Main picture: Hunting in Bushy Park
For me the inscription on the granite statue, “The greatness of a nation consists not so much in the number of its people or in the extent of its territory as in the extent and justice of its compassion” is apt. That Port Elizabeth chose to honour our equestrian friends who were slaughtered during the Boer War epitomises that humanity.
Main picture: Horses being offloaded at the Port Elizabeth harbour during the Anglo Boer War using the sling-hoist method.
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Due to the Baakens River Valley, Port Elizabeth is effectively cleaved into two. Instead of having to take a circuitous route around via South End or use a track from Gubb’s Location, during 1896 it was decided at a Town Council meeting that the Divisional Council’s proposed plan to build a road through Target Kloof from Port Elizabeth to Walmer be approved.
This blog covers the history of the various tracks and roads linking these two towns.
Main picture: The original proper road across the Baakens River was merely called New Road. Also note the footbridge on the left of the road. It was probably used by pedestrian traffic when the river was in spate and water flowed over the road. The hill in the background is where Wellington Park is situated today. Wellington Park is a small Municipal open space on the edge of the Baakens Valley at the corner of Main Road and 5th Avenue. It used to consist of two sports fields that were voluntarily maintained by the nearby Clarendon Primary School.
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This, the oldest unaltered house in Port Elizabeth, bears a specific significance in my life. The original owner of that house – the Reverend Francis McCleland – was my great-great-grandfather. In 1962 the house was declared a National Monument. In order to restore the parsonage house from a place of ill-repute back to its former glory, all members of the McCleland clan in Port Elizabeth were requested to contribute financially to this process.
This blog chronicles how this parsonage came to be erected in Port Elizabeth, its fall from grace, and then how it achieved its current status as a treasured museum
Main picture: This must be the earliest view of Number 7 Castle Hill – a lithograph by W.J. Huggins showing whaling in Algoa Bay in 1832. The recently completed house of Francis McCleland stands alone at the top of Castle Hill, midway between Fort Frederick and the memorial pyramid to Lady Donkin, after whom the town of Port Elizabeth was named
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Being brought up by the sea brought us boundless joy as children. From a very early age we all learned to swim proficiently. As my father was brought up at the coast, he took us to the beach every weekend irrespective of what the weather conditions were like. Due to our competence, we were left unsupervised and unattended on the beach from an early age. Instead of the current generation frequenting the malls, we led an active life.
Even as a competent swimmer I twice almost did not see another day. On both occasions it was a spring tide which was the cause of my near fatal mishaps. Perhaps familiarity breeds contempt as I did not treat the sea with the caution it deserves.
These are the chronicles of those events still seared in my memory.
Main picture: This is a view of the main sand dune at Maitlands River Mouth Continue reading
Today the Shark River is a non-descript stream – more of a trickle really – that tinkles its way through Happy Valley. Being no more than 15kms in length with its source in the location marked Drinking Place on the maps, yet this self-same river was once the earliest water supply of Port Elizabeth. How was this miniscule river together with the Donkin Stream next to the Donkin Reserve capable of supplying the Town’s needs? Logically the water from the Baakens River should have been the preferred source being not only closer but more reliable with a perennial water flow. The other mystery to me is how this docile placid stream is able to increase by the extent that it does during flooding despite having such a minute catchment area.
Main picture: The Shark River on 1st September 1968 and recently. How could such a docile placid stream be transformed into such a violent raging torrent, sweeping all before it.
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