OUR HISTORY, HERITAGE & PEOPLE

THE MENTION THE NAME KIMBERELY IS LIKELY TO EVOKE IMAGES OF DIAMONDS, WEALTH AND THE WORLD-FAMOUS BIG HOLE. 

​The city may have been founded on the precious stones but here in the capital of the Northern Cape Province, visitors are likely to be pleasantly surprised to find a beautiful city filled with tree- lined streets, pretty parks, lovely hotels and plenty of trendy boutique shopping spots. It is a city that pays homage to its past through numerous tours, memorials and statues and visiting Kimberley is like taking a snapshot tour of significant and authentic parts of our country's rich history. 

In the highstakes world of the diamond rush, as many as 30 000 diggers would scour the soil for their fortunes, with some striking it rich and others finding only misery.

Many of those who got lucky made enormous sums of money from the diamond trade and by the turn of the century, Kimberley had become the undisputed diamond capital of the world. Yet this was a town founded on greed and it resembled, in many ways, something out of the Wild West, with gambling, prostitution, mobsters and disease rife.

Despite this, the city retained it's architectural elegance and Kimberley's oldest residential suburb, Belgravia, dates back to the 1870s, bearing testament to the success stories of the time, with many of these massive homes built during the peak of diamond trade.  It's said that there was once more millionaires in this area than anywhere else in the world.

The Big Hole located right in the middle of town is a huge crater dug almost entirely with picks and shovels in an effort to reach the stones. The pit measures over a kilometre deep, with a surface area of 17 hectares, and here men, with little more than man-made tools, managed to remove three tons of diamonds and 22.5 million tons of earth in the process. Today it has been converted into an open air museum with a rather daring lookout point directly over the hole.

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​Adjacent to the Big Hole is the Kimberley Mine Museum, which displays just how the city was during the frenetic days of the diamond rush.
 
A guided underground tour (some 840 metres beneath the earth's surface) of the De Beers diamond mine is fascinating, there is certainly plenty more to Kimberley than rem- nants of the diamond rush and workings of an old diamond mine.
 

The historical city centre is full of monuments, museums and art galleries, many  of  which can be found inside some of the stunning old Victorian homes, while the Town Hall is a stunning example of late 18th century architecture. Naturally, there are many jewellers to be found in this city, with great deals on precious metals and gemstones to be discovered. There's also the Kimberley ghost trail that reveals all the haunted corners of the city.

Art lovers are also in for a treat as there are numerous galleries that showcase art from the San rock art through to 16th and 17th century Flemish, Dutch, English and French  masters and contemporary artists.

For the historians, Kimberley offers up much in the way of battlefields tours, including Battle of Magersfontein site, just 30 kilometres from the city. There is an observation point from which there are good views   of the battlefield and the trenches. There is a small museum with a collection of weapons and uniforms.

​IT'S CLOSER THAN YOU THINK: HOW TO GET HERE

​You can fly directly to Kimberley from all the major cities in South Africa. It's about 500 kilometres or a five-hour drive from Johannesburg and serves as a perfect detour on the N12, just off the N1, that functions as an alternative route between Cape Town and Johannesburg.

BEST TIME TO VISIT

The cooler months in spring (August, September) and autumn (March, April) are recommended. Kimberley can get very hot in summer (December to March) and very cold in winter (May, June and July).

GETTING AROUND

Kimberley is the only South African city with an operational tram system, dating back to the time of the diamond rush.

WHERE TO STAY

Kimberley has a number  of luxury hotels, but many of the B&Bs and guest- houses in the historic part of town, many of them in buildings dating back to the diamond days, come highly recommended.

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 OUR HISTORY, HERITAGE AND PEOPLE

THE BIG HOLE AND KIMBERLEY MINE MUSEUM: A TRIP TO KIMBERELY WOULD BE INCOMPLETE WITHOUT VISITING THE CITY'S MAIN ATTRACTION, THE BIG HOLE. 

Right in the middle of the city, this giant 215-metre deep crater serves as a reminder of the diamond rush of the 1870s, where prospectors carved out  the  largest hand dug excavation in the world in search of the precious gemstones. In its time, the Big Hole yielded an incredible 2 722 kilograms of diamonds.

Today, the Big Hole and its surrounds have been converted into a museum and tourist attraction. Visitors can go underground in a recreation of a mine shaft of the period and learn about the history of diamond mining in Kimberley, see historic memorabilia and buy diamonds slightly cheaper than usual. There is also a fascinating re- construction of the 'Old Town' at the big hole that gives visitors an idea of what it was like to live there back in the town's heydays of the late 1800s.

EXPERIENCE IT FOR YOURSELF:

Tel: 053 839 4600   |   Web: www.thebighole.co.za

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THE VINTAGE TRAM

 

During the diamond rush, Kimberley was a fast growing, exciting town to be a part of shops, pubs, houses, gambling spots and dance halls sprang up at pace around the Big Hole and Kimberley became a magnet for all types of people, from adventurers to hustlers, chancers and ladies of the night. The tram system, set up by the Victoria Tramways Company, first started transporting people to the ever-expanding Big Hole in 1887 and today you can take a 20-minute ride on the vintage orange tram around the Big Hole for around R20, starting at the Kimberley Mine Museum.

The tram heads from the museum past historical features such as the original mining shaft and the authentic West End bar, round the Big Hole to the viewing deck where visitors have a visceral view into it, and also passes some of Kimberley's most historic sites such as  the  Head  Office  of  the  De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd and the  original Big Hole mine  dumps.

 

EXPERIENCE IT FOR YOURSELF:

Tel: 053 830 6272/6779/6271   |   Email:  tourism@solplaatje.org.za 

PERSONALITIES OF NOTE

 

Kimberley is privileged to have been home to a number of legendary personalities, including Sol Plaatje, after whome the municipality is named. Other interesting sons and daughters of Kimberley include Khoisan Chief John Rhodes, Thlaping Chief kgosi Galeshewe, Africa's first woman pilot Marie Bocciarelli and founder of professional nursing in South Africa, Henrietta Stockdale.

 

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 MC GREGOR MUSEUM     

THIS MUSEUM DEPICTS THREE MILLION YEARS OF HUMAN

HISTORY IN THE NORTHERN CAPE.

 

The McGregor Museum was originally located in Chapel Street, but was moved in the early 1970s to a larger building, the old Kimberley Sanatorium the same building where Cecil John Rhodes held up during the Siege of Kimberley from 1899 - 1900.

The first curator of the museum was Ms Maria Wilman and in the forty years that she was in charge, she transformed it into one of the most important in South Africa. Since her fields of interest were botany, mineralogy, ethnology and archaeology, Ms Wilman certainly the foundations of the present museum studies and collections, which have made important contributions to the ecological and historical knowledge of the Northern Cape.

Displays include natural history, the Siege of Kimberley, a Hall of Religions and the acclaimed Ancestors Gallery, depicting three million years of human history in the Northern Cape.

 

EXPERIENCE IT FOR YOURSELF: 5 ATLAS STREET, BELGRAVIA | TEL: 053 839 2700

ENTRY: R25 - ADULTS, R15 - CHILDREN

OPEN: MONDAY - SATURDAY 09:00 - 17:00,

SUNDAYS 14:00 - 17:00

PUBLIC HOLIDAYS 10:00 - 17:00

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​WILLIAM HUMPHREYS ART GALLERY

THE GALLERY FOCUSES PRIMARILY ON COLLECTING SOUTH AFRICAN PIECES IN AN EFFORT TO UPHOLD THE HERITAGE OF SOUTH AFRICAN ART.

 

Located in the Civic Centre gardens The William Humphreys Art Gallery has been around since 1952 and today focuses primarily on collecting South African pieces in an effort to uphold the heritage of South African art, past and present. The art collection here extends well past South African artists, however, with early pieces donated by Humphreys including 16th and 17th century Dutch and Flemish Old Masters, French and British paintings and antique furniture.

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EXPERIENCE IT FOR YOURSELF:

Civic Centre, Cullinan Street | Tel: 053 831 1724/5 Web: www.whag.co.za  |  Entry:  R5

Open: Monday to Friday: 08:00-16:45,

Saturday: 10:00 -16:45,

Sundays & Public holidays: 09:00 - 12:00

​QUEEN VICTORIA STATUE

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Kimberley’s bronze monument  of Queen Victoria can be found outside the William Humphreys Art Gallery on Jan Smuts Boulevard opposite the Oppenheimer Gardens.

One of three statues cast by Mr Raggis from the same mould the other two can be found in Hong Kong and Toronto the height of the statue is an impressive nine feet and six inches. 

See it for yourself:

Jan Smuts Boulevard

​ALEXANDER MCGREGOR MEMORIAL MUSEUM

​​The original Chapel Street museum, which is also named after one of the city’s founding fathers, focuses more on the history of  Kimberley.

​​‘The McGregor’, as it has been referred to for the past century will, however, soon to be changing its name to the Kimberley History Museum. The new museum will exhibit Kimberley in a timeline of events and points of historical interest, such as the development of the city and the so-called, ‘forgotten suburbs’ of Greenpoint, Galeshewe and Malay Camp, a site of forced removal.

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​EXPERIENCE IT FOR YOURSELF:

Chapel Street  |  Tel: 053 839 2700  |  

Entry: R25 - Adults, R15 -   Children

Open: Monday - Friday 09:00 - 17:00

​DUNLUCE HOUSE

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Dunluce, or Lillianville as it was first known, is a reflection of late Victorian elegance and a fine example of Kimberley’s unique architecture. The house was built in 1897 for Gustav Bonas and was later bought by John Orr, who renamed it after the famous, Dunluce Castle in Northern Ireland, the land of his birth. Orr and his successors lived here until 1975, when the  house was purchased by Barlow Rand and do- nated to the McGregor Museum.

​RUDD HOUSE

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Another stately Kimberley home, Rudd House is surrounded by verandahs and is lavishly furnished, boasting a billiard room with a full-size billiard table, still in excellent condition. The original house, known as ‘The Bungalow’, was built in the late 1880s and had only four rooms. In 1896 it was bought    by the mining magnate Charles Dunnell Rudd, who passed it to his son, Henry Percy Rudd, in 1898. He built on extensively and the residence is now a quirky, rambling mansion. In 1971 it was donated to the McGregor Museum by De Beers Consolidated Mine and restored to its former glory.

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​TRANSPORT MUSEUM

THE TRANSPORT MUSEUM IS LOCATED AT THE KIMBERLEY
RAILWAY STATION.
 
The Transport Museum showcases the development of the railways and transport systems of the area. It also pays tribute to all involved in these impressive engineering feats, including the unsung heroes such as the black labourers who were not  previously  honoured  for  their  toil on the railways. There is much to be seen here, including displays of a cabin of a real steam locomotive; the cycle used by the Southern Rhodesian Volunteers during the Anglo-Boer War and model trains from the Baxter collection. 
 

EXPERIENCE IT FOR YOURSELF:

PLATFORM 1, KIMBERLERY STATION, FLORENCE ROAD

TEL: 053 838 2376 | EMAIL: carien.viljoen@transnet.net

OPEN: MON – FRI 08:30 – 15:30

 

 

 

​PIONEERS OF AVIATION OF MUSEUM

KIMBERLEY IS REGARDED AS THE CRADLE OF AVIATION IN SOUTH AFRICA AND IN 1913, SOUTH AFRICA’S FIRST FLYING SCHOOL OPENED HERE.
 
Pilots of the South African Aviation Corps, later to become the South African Air Force, were trained in Kimberley. The museum can be found on  the site of the original flying school and houses a life size replica of the  Compton Paterson biplane as used for the training of pilots who included the nucleus of the future  South  African Air Force. The first female on the African continent to receive her pilot’s license, Ann Maria Bocciarelli, was trained at this facility. 
 
 

EXPERIENCE IT FOR YOURSELF:

Oliver Road (past turn off to Airport)

Tel: 053 839 2700 | Web: www.museumsnc.co.za

 

STEAMNET 2000 NPC 

Steamnet 2000 NPC is a Non Profit Company, the only organisation in the Northern Cape Province, based in Kimberley, dedicated to preserving and restoring the rich steam train heritage of the Province. We receive no state or other funding and rely on donations.

Kimberley to De Aar was one of the most famous steam rail routes in the World and much visited by international tourists. In fact Kimberley introduced the now worldwide phenomena of "Steam Festivals" in 1989 & 1991.

In conjunction with Transnet, Steamnet 2000 NPC cares for and restores some 12 historic, heritage South African steam locomotives.  Not only the large 25NC type but also the only 2 surviving "Condensor" locomotives in the World [manufactured to recycle their water supply in the arid Karoo desert] and Africa's "fastest"  No 858 which operated the Blue Train through Kimberley in the 1930's.

 VIEWING IS BY APPOINTMENT ONLY AND WEARING OF HI VIS VESTS IS MANDATORY [WE SUPPLY]

Judith: 0538420169

Frank: 0829636657

A donation to our funds is appreciated.

 

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​DUGGAN-CRONIN GALLERY
THIS COLLECTION HAS BEEN DESCRIBED AS THE MOST SIGNIFICANT COLLECTION OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN ETHNOGRAPHIC PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE WORLD.

The fascinating story of Alfred Duggan Cronin and his photographs is one of a Kimberley mine compound  guard who bought a cheap box camera and became a South African photographic legend. The Irishman, with his assistant Richard Madela by his side, travelled the  length and breadth of the country   photographing   the lives of indigenous people for 50 years and the Thandabantu exhibition is just a fraction of his collection.

Duggan Cronin’s photographs are priceless records of traditional settings and a timeless record of a distant, more romantic, era in southern Africa. 

EXPERIENCE IT FOR YOURSELF:

 Egerton Road | Tel: 053 839 2743

Open: Monday to Friday, 09:00 –17h00 | Entry: Free

SOL PLAATJE HOUSE MUSEUM

The Sol Plaatje House Museum hosts a library for African literature,with interesting displays on Sol Plaatje’s life. 

A founder member of the ANC, Plaatje would go on to become the party’s first secretary general. While based in Kimberley, the brilliant journalist, intellectual, teacher and linguist served as a court interpreter, translator, novelist and newspaper editor. He authored a number of important  documentary books, in particular Native Life in South Africa and sang the first ever sound recording of Nkosi Sikelele’ iAfrika.The Sol Plaatje House Museum hosts a library for African literature, with interesting displays on Sol Plaatje’s life and the role of African involvement in the Anglo-Boer War. 

EXPERIENCE IT FOR YOURSELF:

Angel Street | Tel: 053 833 2526 | Email: solplaatje@telkomsa.net

Web: www.museumc.nc.co.za  |   Open: Mon – Fri 08:00 –  16:00

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​SOL PLAATJE STATUE 

 

Set in a characteristic pose, the statue of Kimberley’s famous author, journalist, linguist and first Secretary-General of the ANC, Sol Plaatje, can be found at the Civic Centre, formerly the Malay Camp, where Plaatje had his printing press in 1910-13.

The Statue was unveiled by President Jacob Zuma on 9 January 2010, during the 98th anniversary of the founding of the African National Congress and was sculpted by Jo- han Moolman.

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MAGERSFONTEIN BATTLEFIELD MUSEUM

 
TAKE A TOUR OF THE MAGERSFONTEIN BATTLEFIELD WITH AN EXPERIENCED GUIDE AND MILITARY HISTORIAN.

 

During the second South African War, the Boers had besieged Kimberley and its 50 000 and, with supplies running low, relief was imperative.

British forces, in an attempt to relieve Kimberley, advanced under cover of darkness and prepared to storm  the Boer positions at daybreak. The plan backfired as the Boers had dug trenches at the base of the hills and the flat trajectory of their Mauser  rifles  wiped  out  the  advancing British troops. Soldiers who survived the rifle fire were pinned down on the battlefield in the heat of the day and over two hundred British were killed during the battle, many of them from sunstroke and exposure.

Today you can take a tour of the Magersfontein battlefield with an experienced guide and military historian, visiting Boer graves, the Burgher Monument, the Magersfontein hills and the Boer trenches. 

​CITY HALL

KIMBERLEY’S CITY HALL WAS DESIGNED BY CARSTAIRS ROGERS IN ROMAN CORINTHIAN STYLE

Kimberley’s City Hall is one of the city centre landmarks. It is now a national monument and in addition to municipal offices, it also houses   a  tourist  information bureau.  In front of the City Hall are reproductions of the first electric streetlights in South Africa, installed in Kimberley in 1882.

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​TRINITY CHURCH

An historical landmark in Kimberley, the Trinity Church was built in the early 19th century for the Methodist congregation and has Gothic external detail and fine red brick.
 
 
 
SEE IT FOR YOURSELF: CHAPEL STREET  

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​HONOURED DEAD MEMORIAL

THE HONOURED DEAD MEMORIAL IS ONE OF KIMBERLEY’S MANY PROVINCIAL HERITAGE SITES

The Honoured Dead Memorial honours those soldiers who gave their lives defending the city during  the Siege of Kimberley in the Anglo-Boer War.

It was Cecil John Rhodes who commissioned Sir Herbert Baker to design the memorial and sent him to Greece to study ancient memorials – with the end result being that the Nereid Monument  at  Xanthus  was  a great influence on his design. 

The monument is situated at the meeting point of five roads and is built of sandstone quarried in the Matopo Hills in Zimbabwe. The ‘Long Cecil’ gun that was designed and manufactured by George Labram in the workshops of De Beers during the siege is mounted on its stylobate and it is surrounded by shells from the Boer ‘Long Tom’. The monument features an inscription that Rhodes specifically commissioned Rudyard Kipling to write.

SEE IT FOR YOURSELF: Dulham & Oliver Roads  |  Tel: 053 839   2700

'MA' FRANCES BAARD STATUE​

Frances Baard was a South African trade unionist and organiser for the African National Congress Women’s League and it is after her whom the District Municipality is named.
In commemoration of her role in the Women’s March on 9 August 1956, a bronze statue of her was unveiled in Kimberley, with the inscription on the granite plinth reading, “My  spirit  is  not banned - I still say I want freedom in my lifetime.”

Cecil John Rhodes Statue

Reputed to be one of the finest equestrian statues in the world, this bronze work by Hamo Thornycroft depicts Cecil Rhodes mounted on his horse, with a map of Africa in his hands. Facing to the north, it is symbolic of Rhodes’s vision of extending the British Empire deep into the African hinterland. Rhodes is depicted in the clothes he wore at the memorable indaba with the Matabele indunas (leaders) in the Matopos.

SEE IT FOR YOURSELF:  CORNER OF BULTFONTEIN ROADS, DU TOITSPAN ROAD

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​DIGGER'S FOUNTAIN

THE DIGGERS MEMORIAL IS A FOUNTAIN AND STATUE IN THE FORM OF A DIAMOND SIEVE HELD ALOFT BY FIVE LIFE-SIZE DIGGERS.

The memorial, designed by Herman Wald, was erected in honour of diggers past and present and is located in the Ernest Oppenheimer Gardens, which are in turn a memorial to the late Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, a mining magnate and the first mayor of Kimberley. A bust of Sir Ernest gazes out over the fountain and rose garden.

SEE IT FOR YOURSELF:Jan Smuts Boulevard

 

MELAY CAMP MEMORIAL

Kimberley’s Malay Camp, which has a history similar to Cape Town’s District Six, was a cosmopolitan suburb that sprung up in the early days of Kimberley’s existence. Sadly, it too was subject to forced ‘slums clearance’ after the owner of the land donated  the area to the Kimberley Municipality.

 Most of the houses, churches, mosques, shops and other buildings were demolished, making way for Kimberley’s Civic Centre. Sol Plaatje was a resident of Malay Camp.
 


 

DE BEERS HEAD OFFICE

THE HEAD OFFICE OF SOUTH AFRICA'S LARGEST MINING COMPANY.

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This building was the original head- quarters of Barney Barnato’s Kimberley Central Diamond Mining  Company  but  is now the headquarters of De Beers Consolidated Mines, the largest mining company in South Africa. 

The building is a double storey block in typical Kimberley red brick. The  building was designed by White Cooper and erected in 1887 by the company

Jones and Cole. 

SEE IT FOR YOURSELF:Stockdale Street

               KIMBERLEY CLUB
THE KIMBERLEY CLUB IS A BOUTIQUE THAT WAS FOUND IN 1881.

The Kimberley Club is a boutique hotel  that  was founded in 1881 by Cecil  John Rhodes and the top men in the diamond industry, who were looking for a place to meet away from the dusty mines. A visitor once said “the place was stuffed with more millionaires to the square foot than any other place in the world” and many key decisions relating to Kimberley and beyond are reported to have been made here.

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ST CYPRIANS

THE IMPRESSIVE CATHEDRAL AT CYPRIANS CHURCH, KNOWN AS THE 'ENGLISH CHURCH', SOARS INTO THE KIMBERLEY SKY. 

While the cathedral itself may be over a century old, the parish traces its roots back over 140 years. St Cyprians Gram- mar School is attached to the cathedral.

SEE IT FOR YOURSELF:Tel: 053 833 3437

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​MEMORIAL TO SISTER HENRIETTA STOCKDALE

Henrietta Stockdale was an Anglican nun and first matron of the Kimberley hospital. Her greatest achievement was securing legal recognition for the nursing profession as South Africa became the first country in the world to institute compulsory state registration of nurses. The statue of Sister Henrietta is in front of the St Cyprian’s Cathedral and is reputed to be the only portrait statue of a nun in the world.

 

​ROBERT SOBUKWE HOUSE AND LAW OFFICE

                       

​ROBERT MANGALISO SOBUKWE WAS ONE OF THE COUNTRY’S FREEDOM FIGHTERS-AND CERTAINLY ONE OF THE MOST HARSHLY TREATED BY THE APARTHEID GOVERNMENT.

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 The founding president of the Pan Africanist Congress, he was one of the leaders of the pass law demonstration that ended in the tragedy at Sharpeville in 1960. Sobukwe was subsequently arrested for ‘incitement’ and given a three year prison sentence, which was extended by a further six years of solitary confinement on Robben Island. Released in 1969, Sobukwe was exiled to Kimberley where he was placed under house arrest. From his house at 6 Naledi Street, Galeshewe, Sobukwe achieved his law degree and practiced law from a law office in Royal Street. He died in Kimberley in 1978. 

EXPERIENCE IT FOR YOURSELF: Kimberley Visitors Centre, 121 Bultfontein Road Tel: 053 830 6779/ 6272/ 6271 | Email: tourism@solplaatje.org.za

CANOTAPH

Designed by famous local architect and painter, William Timlin, the Cenotaph was erected to commemorate the 400 Kimberley men who fell in World War I.

It is slightly unusual in that it gives the dates of the War as 1914-1919, even though hostilities ceased 1918. Plaques bearing the names of Kimberley men who died during World War II (1939-1945) were added later.

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NORTHERN CAPE PROVINCE LEGISLATURE

THE FEELING THAT THE STRUCTURE EVOKES IS CAPTURED IN THE CATCHPHRASE 'AN ICON OF PRIDE, A HOME TO ALL'.

The Northern Cape Provincial Leg- islature is the law-making institu- tion of the province and this Afri- can-inspired Provincial Legislature building is aptly situated between the city and the township of Gale- shewe and is the pride of the Northern Cape. The feeling that the structure evokes is captured in the catchphrase ‘an icon of pride, a home to all’. It is an ar- chitectural reflection of the Northern Cape Province and captures the spirit and aspi- rations  of  the  people  of the province with its unique, evocative family of forms and the interrelation of volumes and open space.

As such the new building houses the mem- bers of the Provincial Legislature, the support staff of the Legislature, the Premier, and the Premier’s office staff. It has a debating chamber, a library, an open area called the ‘Pat- lelo’, and a Respirator Tower which is primarily an architectural landmark. The buildings face the People’s Square, a gathering area and public space.
 

EXPERIENCE IT FOR YOURSELF:

Nobengula Extension Opposite West End Hospital

Tel: 053 839 8023/4 | Web: www.ncleg.gov.za

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MITTAH SEPEREPERE CONVENTION CENTRE

FOR CONFERENCING IN THE CITY IT'S HARD TO BEAT THE NEW MITTAH SEPEREPERE CONVENTION CENTRE.

 

 

EXPERIENCE IT FOR YOURSELF

:2 West Circular Road | Tel: 082 779 3029

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AFRICANA LIBRARY

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Formerly the Kimberly Library, The Africana Library houses many rare items relating to Kimberley, the Diamond Fields and the Northern Cape, including 14 000 books, 640 manuscripts and 12 000 photographs.  Included in the collection are early print editions of African indigenous languages (San, Tswana, Zulu, Xhosa), early books related to diamond mining and records dating back to the first diamond rush in the 1870s, newspapers from the 1870s and books by early European travellers in the region, and books and maps from the South African War (also known as the Anglo-Boer War).

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NOOITGEDACHT GLACIAL PAVEMENTS

THE NOOITGEDACHT GLACIAL PAVEMENTS DATE BACK TO ABOUT 300 MILLION AGO.

The Nooitgedacht Glacial Pavements are a geological feature between Kimberley and Barkly West, dating back to about 300 million years ago.  Here the glacially smoothed bedrock was used as panels for San rock engravings during the Stone Age. There is also a small on-site interpretive centre which provides details of the glacial era.
 

DRIEKOPSEILAND ROCK ENGRAVINGS

Driekopseiland is a site of impressive sacred San rock engravings located just outside of Kimberley, in a town called Plooysburg. There are more than 3 500 engravings here and it is thought the site was one where ritual practices took place. It was declared a national monument in 1944.

 

BARKLY WEST MUSEUM

THE BARKLY WEST MUSEUM IS HOUSED IN THE OLD TOLL HOUSE BUILDING, STANDING ADJACENT TO THE BARKLY BRIDGE.

The Barkly West Museum is housed in the old Toll House building, standing adjacent to the Barkly Bridge, on the outskirts of the village. At the museum, you will find out about the early mining methods, life on the river diggings,  diamond  trading  and the politics an area that was the site of the first exploration of alluvial diamonds in 1870. The Toll House and the bridge, built in 1885, and were proclaimed national monuments in 1968.

 

CANTEEN K

OPJE

Canteen Kopje is a rich Earlier Stone Age site locate on the banks of the Vaal River near Barkly West that has been declared a Provincial Heritage Site. Diamonds were discovered there in 1869 and it became the first alluvial diamond diggings in South Africa. Canteen Koppie has also produced an abundance of Acheulian Stone Age art affacts.
Today there is an open air trail on the site, including information boards.

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