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Kimberley |
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DESTINATION INFORMATION
The capital of South Africa's Northern Cape Province, Kimberley is a modern city with tree-lined streets and attractive parks.
The history of the town of Kimberley started in 1867 when farm boy Erasmus Jacobs had discovered an unusually glittering stone and brought it home for his sisters to play with. His parents had it analysed and identified as a diamond. However, the big diamond rush only broke out three years later, when a whole handful of such stones was found on the farm of Nicolaas de Beers. More than 30,000 people came to the area, and the de Beers were happy to sell their otherwise not very profitable farm for £6,300.
Everywhere people feverishly started to dig for diamonds. The richest finds were made on the Colesberg Koppie, later the site of the Kimberley Mine. The hill which had contained the first finds soon disappeared and the prospectors had to drive a shaft into the earth. Over the course of time, the deepest hole ever dug by man, known as The Big Hole, took shape (see below).
Kimberley nowadays has much to offer visitors. Excellent museums portraying early life on the diamond fields, military history from the Anglo-Boer War, mining museums and tours, Pioneers of Aviation Museum & Art museums. Not to be missed is a visit to the 'Big Hole' and Victorian town open air museum.
Surrounding Kimberley are memorials and sites of some important battles of the Anglo-Boer War, most notably the Siege of Kimberley in 1899 with the famous 12kg gun 'Long Cecil' on display, and the battlefield site of Magersfontein where the boer general De La Rey used trench warfare for the first time and the Highland Brigade were almost annihilated. The museum and battlefield has been preserved with many relics from the historic battle on display.
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WHAT TO DO
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The Big Hole ~ The largest man-made hole in the world at 800 metres deep, and has a perimeter of 1 mile. By the time the mine closed in 1914, 2.7 tons of diamonds had been excavated from this spot.
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Kimberley Mine Museum ~ Next door to the Big Hole, the museum consists of original and carefully reconstructed buildings and has preserved a great deal of the city's past. Retrace the lives of the rough-and-ready diggers who made it all happen, as well as experiencing life in Kimberley as it must have been during the diamond-rush days when the pubs and ballrooms made the town a lively place! The 'Eureka', the first recorded diamond discovered in South Africa, and the '616', at 616 carats, the world's largest uncut diamond, can both be viewed at the museum.
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The McGregor Museum ~ Offering everything from A (Archaeology) to Z (Zoology), such as Botany, Cultural History, Military History, Documents and Archives, Ethnology, Living History and Rock Art.
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Magersfontein ~ The site of the Boer War battle at Magersfontein, which took place on 11 December 1899 when entrenched Boers decimated the famous Highland Brigade. Experience the battle with the gun fire as background in a reconstructed trench and watch the fight taking place right in front of your own eyes!
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Other battle sites ~ Graspan, Modder River, Paardenberg and Sunnyside.
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Rhodes' Statue ~ Portrayed as Kimberley citizens knew him, astride his horse, a map of Africa on his lap.
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Bronze monument of Queen Victoria ~ Resplendent on her State chair and clad in her state robes, Queen Victoria holds a sceptre in one hand and orb in the other.
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The Cape Police Memorial ~ Situated in Belgravia is in memory of the Cape Colony policemen who died during the Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902.
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The Honoured Dead Memorial ~ Erected in memory of the British soldiers who gave their lives in defending Kimberley form the Boers during the siege that lasted 124 days, unveiled on 28 November 1904, the fifth anniversary of the second battle of Carter's Ridge.
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