One of the most prominent features in the South End Museum is a map of what South End in Port Elizabeth looked like before the Apartheid government demolished most of the buildings and subsequently also a lot of the streets in the area. The map shows street names as well as where a lot of the prominent buildings like schools, churches, hotels and shops.
The VW AutoPavilion in Uitenhage has a very impressive collection of vehicles and memorabilia connected to Volkswagen and every boy (young or old) who is interested in cars should visit the museum at least once. Part of the collection are a number of Beetles. 288 353 Beetles were manufactured at the Uitenhage plant between 1951 and 1979 with the rusty red coloured one on the left being the very last to come off the production line. It has only 200 kilometers on the…
Looking at this scene with the Xhosa shepherd hut surrounded by flowering aloes one could easily think that the picture was taken somewhere in the heart of the former Transkei or the Wild Coast. In actual fact it was taken at the Cuyler Manor Museum just outside Uitenhage.
One of Port Elizabeth's most fascinating and probably lesser visited museums is the St Croix Motor Museum. The museum belongs to Eben de Vos and consist of over 50 vintage cars. I was asked the other day if I have ever been there and I was embarrassed to say that I have never been, so this lead to an invitation and a very eye opening visit. The cars in this private collection of vintage and classic cars date back to 1901…
Completed in 1825, No 7 Castle Hill is one of the oldest surviving Settler cottages in Port Elizabeth. It was opened as a historical museum in 1965 and is furnished to show a picture of domestic life as enjoyed by an English middle class family in mid-19th Century Port Elizabeth. Its the kind of museum that both young and old enjoy with young ones exploring and discovering things they may have never known and the older crowd seeing thing that…
On Saturday evening No7 Castle Hill celebrated Museum Week by having a "Night in the Museum" evening. Visitors could visit No7 after dark between 6pm and 9pm and with some of the lights turned off to gave it a very special atmosphere. Each child received a treasure hunt page with items found throughout the museum on it as well as a little battery operated "candle". Although I have been to No7 Castle Hill so many times before it was a great…
Visiting Cuyler Manor Museum in Uitenhage with a couple of colleagues last week, we had an opportunity to be shown around the museum grounds and the old manor house by a very enthusiastic Rosie. Rosie has been working for the museum for years and even though she isn't a trained guide she could just as well have been. She told us all the stories regarding specific things around the farm yard, but once we got into the manor house she was…
The No 7 Castle Hill historical museum has a fantastic collection of old dolls and toys dating back to the Victorian era and which are on display in two of the museum's rooms. Just off the courtyard is the doll display while the rest of the toys can be seen upstairs in the play room.
The No 7 Castle Hill historic museum is really one of the special gems in Port Elizabeth's tourism crown. The house is the oldest residential house in Port Elizabeth and completed in about 1829. The museum is furnished to show what life was like for a English middle-class family in Port Elizabeth in the mid 19th century. The furniture are mostly early Victorian making the museum a treasure trove for any history buffs out there.
The last in this short series on the Red Location Museum in New Brighton covers "You are my witness", a photo essay dedicated to the mothers, fathers, women, men and children of the Langa massacre, who sacrificed their lives for the liberation struggle of South Africa. The massacre took place on 21 March 1985 in Langa township in Uitenhage when mourners, peacefully marching in solidarity to a funeral of those who lost their lives while protesting against grave oppressive conditions, were violently massacred…