Historic Houses

A couple of the historic houses in one of the streets of Cental. In this immediate area there are many old settler houses that date back to the mid 1800's. Most of them are very well looked after and maintained while others are being restored. Unfortunately just down the street a couple of blocks away there are a lot of buildings crying out to be restored. Unfortunately some of the property owners in Central doesn't care enough about the heritage buildings in their portfolios to fix them up to their former glory.

Maitlands River Lagoon

The Maitlands River would never really be called a river of note, more like a local stream. But on its way to the ocean it flows through Sleepy Hollow and past the giant Maitlands sand dune. Just before it slowly flows into the ocean, it forms a small lagoon next to the dune. Usually in summer kids will splash around in it as the sea at the river mouth is a bit of a dangerous spot to swim in.

Fort Frederick

Fort Frederick can be found on the hill overlooking the Baakens River valley and Port Elizabeth Harbour. It's a stone fort built in 1799 by the British Forces to defend the mouth of the Baakens River to prevent a possible landing of French troops to assist the Graaff-Reinet rebels. It was named after Frederick, Duke of York and was commanded by Captain Francis Evatt. Even though the fort was built to defend the Bay, ironically, no shot was ever fired in anger from it. The Fort, containing a powder magazine and a guardhouse, was originally defended by eight 12-powder guns.

Havelock Square

Havelock Square is one of a couple of public parks around the historic part of Central. Havelock square is a bit different though as it is an unfenced park with a one way paved road going around it. Havelock Square was part of The Grey Institute Grant originally surveyed in 1856, with the oldest houses being built in 1862. The Holy Trinity Church on the eastern side of the square was built in 1866 and re- built in 1897 after being destroyed by a fire, while the St Johns Methodist Church on the western side was opened in 1894.

The yellow building with the green roof in the background of the photo is the Havelock Conference Centre which offers a great conferencing option with accommodation. (I'm giving them a quick punt cause I have a friend who works there and I got some of the above information off their website.)

Havelock Square is situated on the Donkin Heritage Trail and is a stone's throw away from some of Central's best know historic sites as well as the restaurants in Parliament Street.

The end of the track?

The Humewood Station is Port Elizabeth's main narrow gauge station and is mainly used by the Apple Express tourist train. Big parts of the old station is in desperate need of repair while a section of it acts as a grave yard for old steam trains and rolling stock. Steam train enthusiasts would probably look at the remains of some of those trains and pick away a tear in sadness. Unfortunately the reality is that Spoornet doesn't have much use for the narrow gauge line from Humewood and should actually privatise it so that it could be maintained and better utilised.

Seaweed

Going for a walk along the beach at Cape Recife the other day, we found this big patch of seaweed washed up on the beach. A lot of seaweed like this gets loosened from the sea floor during storms and after a strong easterly wind gets washed up on the beach.

Ivy Terrace

International Mohair Summit

The first biennual International Mohair Summit took place in the Karoo town of Graaff Reinet last week. "What does it have to do with Port Elizabeth?" I hear you ask. Well, Port Elizabeth is seen as the mohair capital of the world as more mohair moves through this city than anywhere else in the world. If you want to learn more about the summit, you can read more about it on The Firefly Photo Files.

Specific posts are:

International Mohair Summit

Mohair Products

Shearing

Angora Goat Competitions

4 Women

I popped into the EPSAC gallery a day or so ago to have a look at the 4 WOMEN exhibition that is currently on. Esme Goosen, Rina Badenhorst, Roma Cloete and Sue Hoppe (who some of you will remember as one part of SAM, my predecessor on PEDP), who each have strong and distinctive styles, are presenting a group exhibition of their recent work. A feature of this exhibition is that some of the artists will set up a still life in the gallery, and will spend some time painting there during the exhibition, so that interested art lovers can see their different approaches and see works in progress. A silent auction are being held on these "works in progress" and the winning bids will be announced when the exhibition closes at noon on Saturday 14th November. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the EPSAC Red Brush fund to help towards renovating costs.

The next exhibit presented at EPSAC will be a watercolours exhibit of which I hope to show you something in due coarse.

Restoration

The area of Central is one of the oldest areas in Port Elizabeth with the most historic building. Even though there are property owners who are in the news a lot for not fixing up their properties, there are a lot of people who does take care to restore their building to its former glory. I took a walk around Central the other day and it is amazing to see how many people are fixing and painting their building. It seems that slowly but surely Central is being fixed up.