Port Elizabeth’s Heritage Monuments and Memorials
Port Elizabeth’s Heritage Monuments and Memorials
A number of historically significant monuments and memorials dot PE, all of which are protected but open to the public, and each of which tells a particular story – not only of the history and heritage of Port Elizabeth, but also that of South Africa. For those who appreciate the past, these memorials are all situated within a short distance of each other and can be visited over a few hours on one’s own or on a heritage tour.
Possibly the most poignant of these is The Horse Memorial, dedicated to the hundreds of thousands of horses that were transported to PE during the Anglo-Boer War between 1899 and 1902. Many of these brave animals died en-route or while being offloaded on the docks, and still many more in combat. They have not been forgotten thanks to the efforts of a ladies committee who acknowledged both the suffering and the contribution they made, and the Horse Memorial stands in reverence to them. The touching bronze statue that shows a soldier kneeling at the head of a tired and thirsty horse was designed by British sculptor Joseph Whitehead, and cast in Surrey, England. Painstakingly transported across the ocean like the live animals it commemorates, the life-size statue was erected in 1905 and stands on a granite horse trough at the juncture of Russell Road and Cape Road. The statue is a protected National Heritage structure.
Other Heritage structures within the city include The Campanile, the Prestor John Memorial and Fort Frederick.
The Campanile is a 120 foot bell tower built in the 1920’s to commemorate the 1820 Dutch/French Settlers who became the Afrikaans (or Boer) people of South Africa. The Campanile can be ascended for a great view over the city, and the bells are rung three times a day.
The Prestor John Memorial is a Coptic Cross with two figures sitting inside it, and commemorates the Portuguese explorers who discovered what became South Africa as well as the story of a far older mythical figure named Prestor John. Between the 12th and 18th centuries Prestor John was believed to have been an early Christian King, one of the descendants of the Three Magi of Christian belief, the ‘patron’ of Christian exploration of the world, ‘a symbol to European Christians of the Church’s universality, transcending culture and geography to encompass all humanity’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prester_John) and therefore a figurehead for Portuguese sailors and explorers.
The Southern Coast of South Africa was colonised by the Portuguese earlier than by the British and Dutch, often by the survivors of shipwrecks, and so they too add cultural and historical threads to the heritage of Port Elizabeth besides the discovery of the coastline.
Today Port Elizabeth is incorporated with the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality, and a new story is being written – that of the heritage of the indigenous people of Southern Africa, the recent history of the struggle with Apartheid and the current emergence of the Black majority as leaders of the country and its cities.
Fort Frederick is little more than a ruin these days, but well worth visiting for the view over Algoa Bay from the top of the fort. The fort was built at the mouth of the Baakens River in 1799 – in the very early days of British colonisation – in order to defend against any invasion of French troops during the Napoleonic Wars. The French never invaded, and the cannons, which are still there today, were never fired.