Our church (Hoogland Dutch Reformed Church) recently installed a public tap for runners and others in need of a drink of water. I love the creativity of whoever was in charge of the project.
A little caching expedition took me to St Katharine Church in Uitenhage the other day. The foundation stone, which cannot be found today, was laid in 1867 and it is from this date that the anniversaries are counted, although the building (as in construction) only began in 1869. It was completed in 1875 after many financial constraints and problems and dedicated that same year by Rev. William Llewellyn. It was named by him after St. Katharine, an eighth century Egyptian Princess who was beautiful…
Port Elizabeth has some truly beautiful old historic stone churches around Central. One of them is the Holy Trinity Church next to Havelock Square. The Holy Trinity Church was established in 1854 when a group broke away from St Mary’s church and started having for services in a small room in Kemp Street. They later moving to a church at the bottom of Military Road with the first church on the present site opening for worship in 1866. The original church was gutted when a deranged woman set…
I am amazed at the places I have discovered while out Geocaching. One of my recent discoveries is the Evangelical Mission Church in Uitenhage. Approaching down the road I didn't realize the corrugated iron building was a church until I stopped, had a good look and noticed the roof lantern. According to the cache listing "this little church is a ridged and gabled, timber framed building. The building is a good example of a genre which has mostly disappeared. It retained some detail features such…
Back in the early days of PE Daily Photo before I took over from Sue and Max, the St Philips Anglican Church in Richmond Hill got featured on a fairly regular basis, specially around sunrise or sunset. That's because Sue and Max live just up the road from it. I on the other hand live on the other side of town and don't get to visit Richmond Hill that often. Last weekend I had to attend a function at another…
The figure on the arch entrance way outside St Mary's Catholic Cathedral in the Port Elizabeth city centre
Up to the time that the British Settlers arrived in Algoa Bay in 1820, the needs of the British garrison at Port Elizabeth had been served by chaplains on passing ships. By 1825 the settlement had grown to about 500 people. One of these was Reverend Francis McClelland (the same person who built No 7 Castle Hill). He was appointed Colonial Chaplain that same year and laid the foundation stone for the Collegiate Church of St Mary the Virgin was laid. The church was finally…
Port Elizabeth has two beautiful cathedrals literally a couple of hundred meters away from each other in the city centre. The one is the St Mary's Anglican Cathedral while the second (in picture) is St Augustine's Catholic Cathedral. When the first Catholic priest set foot in Port Elizabeth in 1840 (after being shipwrecked in Cape St Francis and having to travel the last 100km to town on horseback), there were only 42 Catholics in the town. In the coming years…
I recently started Geocaching, so you may just hear me mention it every now and then as it gets me to be out and about a bit more than usual. One of the places I found a cache was at the St Peters Church ruins in South End. The church was opened in 1877. After the people of the area were removed due to the Group areas Act in the late 1960's the church was demolished to stop the congregation coming…
Captain Francis Evatt who was commander of Fort Frederick from 1817 - 1847 and amongst others oversaw the landing of the 1820 British Settlers was buried in St Mary's Cathedral after his death. His remains were moved to a grave just outside the north wall of Fort Frederick in 1956. With the moving of his remains to the new grave it was decided to put a replica tomb stone on the grave while the original tomb stone was installed in the cathedral's foyer.