South Africa's oldest letter box

The oldest official letter box in South Africa stands on the corner Worcester Street and Somerset Street in Grahamstown.  The box is painted in the traditional Post Office red (Although there was some ugly blue graffiti on it during my visit.  That is why the picture was taken from the wrong side with the sun in front of me) and is a fluted pillar box type which was manufactured between 1857 and 1859. 

It bore the letters "VR" in curling script, denoting the reigning monarch, Queen Victoria, but sadly some of the insignia was removed by vandals at some unknown stage.  To establish its true origins would require digging at the base of the post box, but disturbing the soil that has built up around its base since the 1860's could cause the whole receptacle to collapse.  It must surely rank among the top twenty of the world's traditional "red box" survivors.

The Drostdy Gate

The Drostdy Gate forms the main walk in entrance to Rhodes University from the High Street of Grahamstown.  Originally built in 1841, it was the entrance to the military establishment which was to be on the site of the then unoccupied and unused Drostdy House grounds. 

Framed in the Drostdy Gate's arch is the clock tower of the main administration block of the university which was based on a design by Sir Herbert Baker and Francis Kendall.  The building incorporates the site of the old Drostdy which it replaced in 1910.

Birch's money chute system

T Birch & Company is one of the oldest outfitting and tailoring businesses in South Africa and opened up in Port Elizabeth in 1860.  They expanded to Grahamstown in 1864 and has become the designers and official robe makers to most of the tertiary institutions as well as courts and churches in the country.  But that isn't why I took Chaos Boy to have a look at their historic building in Grahamstown.

I took him there to see their old  money chute and cable system with which money was sent from various spots in the shop to a central cashier in the past.  Although the system isn't in use anymore, its still in working order.

As I was explaining to Chaos Boy how the system worked, one of the shop assistants stood closer and asked him if he would like to see how it works.  Do birds have wings? I picked him up and he pulled the lever closest to us in the photo.  The front section pulls back to spring load before it shoots off along the cable to the central cashier point.  Just more proof that its always possible to find something interesting to show a child, doesn't matter where you go.

Fort Selwyn

The hill overlooking Grahamstown from the east on which the prominent Settlers Monument is situated is called Gunfire Hill.  In 1835 during the 6th Frontier War (there were nine Frontier wars stretching over 100 years) it was decided to built a fort on top of the hill to protect the approaches to the town as well as its resources.  The fort was named after Captain Charles Jasper Selwyn of the Cape Corps of Royal Engineers who was responsible for the design and construction of the fort.

The fort was manned by the Royal Artillery between 1836 and 1862, when most of the garrison was withdrawn from Grahamstown.  It was again manned during the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902, but thereafter it fell into disrepair until its restoration in the 1970's. 

 An interesting story on how the hill got its name is that up until September 1870 a nine o'clock gun was fired from Fort Selwyn every morning, allegedly to remind Grahamstown's civil servants that they should be at work.

In 1845 a semaphore mast was erected as part of a telegraph system that was intended to connect Grahamstown with Fort Beaufort and Fort Peddie to convey messages along the defensive line.  The system however was a huge failure as the masts were often obscured by mists and haze.

Fort Selwyn forms part of the Albany Museum Complex in Grahamstown.

Grahamstown Observatory Museum

My visit to Grahamstown with Chaos Boy started on a high note with our visit to the Natural Science Museum but he got bored at the History Museum, so when I told him that we were going to a third museum he was obviously a bit reluctant to go in case it was boring again.  Oh well, I'm the dad and I make the decisions, so off we went to the Observatory Museum.

This building was originally a 19th Century jeweller's shop and family home and it's connection with the identification of the Eureka, South Africa's first authenticated diamond, in 1867 prompted De Beers Consolidated Mines Limited to purchase the building and restore it in 1981.  After the restoration it became part of the Albany Museum Complex. 

The original owner of the building, Henry Carter Galpin, was a watchmaker and jeweller who lived in Grahamstown from 1850 until his death in 1886.  His special interests - optics, astronomy and the measuring of time - are impressively reflected in this gracious multi-storeyed building.  Galpin built a Meridian Room in the house where he could ascertain the precise time of local noon - 14 minutes behind South African standard time.  Which means that if you hear the world will come to an end at a certain time, go to Grahamstown and you will have 14 minutes extra.  In the nearby Telescope Room visitors will find his 8-inch reflector telescope which was initially installed in the rooftop observatory and for which the house got its name.

But the main reason we were here was to see the only Victorian Camera Obscura in the Southern Hemisphere.  On arrival at the museum we were taken up the stairs to a little dark room on the roof.  Here, through a system of lenses and mirrors in the revolving turret in its roof, this ingenious device projects an full colour live panorama of the town and its activities onto a flat viewing surface in the darkened room.  In the picture you can see Chaos Boy looking at the image.  It looks so real that he kept on touch it, specially when a car drove by or somebody was walking past.

On the way back down you get an opportunity to have a look at the rest of the museum.  The Victorian Floor is made up of five rooms of fine furnishings recapture the atmosphere of an upper middle class home of the time.  After our visit I asked Chaos Boy if he was glad that we went.  His answer, "Why didn't you tell me that we will see that thing in the dark with the whole town on it?"  I did try....

Grahamstown History Museum

The second museum that forms part of the Albany Museum Complex in Grahamstown is the History Museum.  This museum was established in 1965 and used to be known as the 1820 Settlers Memorial Museum.  A couple of years ago it was decided to not just focus on the contribution of the 1820 British Settlers to the district anymore, but to encompass all the people that live and have lived in the Eastern Cape. 

The collections relating to the British Settlers cover agricultural equipment, domestic furniture, costume and textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, toys and dolls, militaria, medals, coins, documents and genealogical information.  Looking at some of the things in the collection, specially the furniture, you can see how they were under a wrong impression about what was waiting for them when they got here.

The ethnographic collection focuses on Southern Nguni Peoples and features the traditional dress of the Xhosa people.  On our visit there was also a temporary exhibition on traditional African music as well as a art exhibition upstairs.  There is a small art collection of original historic paintings by F T I'ons and T Baines.

After the excitement of the Natural Science Museum, Chaos Boy found the History Museum very boring.  I have to kinda agree with him on that one.  If it wasn't for my keen interest in the 1820 British Settlers, I probably wouldn't have gone in there at all.  My humble opinion is that they need to expand a lot on their exhibition on the Xhosa culture so that they can pull more feet through the door by creating an interest in the culture where tourists and visitors can come and learn more about it.

Grahamstown Natural Science Museum

Like father, like son.  Chaos Boy has developed an interest in geography, the world, its wonders and its interesting bits and pieces like archaeology, legends and mysteries.  One night I was reading to him about Egypt (he chose the book, not me) and I told him that there is a real mummy in the Natural Science Museum in Grahamstown.  He has been nagging me ever since to take him and we finally had an opportunity during the winter school holidays. 

The original Albany Museum was established 1855, making it the second oldest museum in South Africa.  Over the years the Albany Museum has developed into a complex comprising five components of which the Natural Science Museum is only one of them.  The others are the History Museum, the Observatory Museum, the Provost Prison and Fort Selwyn.  The front of the core-block of the museum building as seen from the street was build between 1889 and 1902.  In 1941 a fire gutted the building, destroying much of the exhibition material, but the Museum was rebuilt and new exhibits constructed with specimens generously supplied by other museums in South Africa.

The museum's main theme covers the natural science and the natural history of the Eastern Cape and include earth sciences, archaeology, insects, birds, mammals, and plants.  A notable exhibit is a portion of one of the Gibeon meteorites which fell around Gibeon in Namibia approximately 600 million years ago.

Chaos Boy came into his element when we entered the dinosaur and fossil exhibition area.  The majority of the fossils here were found in the Eastern Cape and the exhibit includes a reconstruction of the first dinosaur discovered in South Africa, Stegosaur Paranthodon Africanus.  Another interesting part was the fact that there is a real life archaeologist working on real fossils who called us over and explained to us what he was doing.

But dinosaurs, meteors, stuffed birds and animals apart.  We came for one thing and (as it turned out much more and really not just) one thing only.  The mummy... and her cat.