The pulpit in the Groote Kerk in Cape Town

There is a marvelous pulpit that has been hand carved in the Groote Kerk(Great Church) in Adderley Street, Cape Town.  The carving of this pulpit always gets credited to Anton Anreith and his assistant Jan Graaf. Anreith's name is the biggee when it comes to carvings in Cape Town resulting in the fact that Graaf's name is generally left out when guides credit someone for the carving of this magnificent pulpit.

The funny part is that Anreith had very little to do with the pulpit carving. He was originally appointed to do the work and submitted a design which he called Faith, Hope and Charity. This represented three ladies in flowing garments. The Church Council considered the garments to be too revealing which caused the design to be rejected, however with the rejection came the request that lions and tigers had to be incorporated in the design. A design containing lions was resubmitted and both Anreith and Graaf  did the carving, however Graaf got paid 2/3 as much as Anreith because Anreith lost interest in the work. The inclusion of the lions was the cause of this as Anreith had done many carvings of these animals before and got bored of doing the work

Fish Hoek's Cross

While travelling back from a fire torn Simonstown area last week with 13 absolutely wonderful American visitors in the back of the Mercedes Sprinter, we happened to be looking straight at the mountain on the Muizenberg side overlooking Fish Hoek. At that point one of my visitors called out loudly "look at the cross on the mountain". I looked up at the mountain and there for the first time I saw the shape of a crucifix made out of rock and gravel paths that was as large as the mountain itself. I was stunned in that after having seen the mountain so many times before I had never seen this phenomenon. I dont guess when it comes to telling my visitors facts about Cape Town so I immediately phoned two fellow guides whom I respect highly for their knowledge of Cape Town for advice. They both told me that they had never seen the cross before and obviously thus did not know its origin. On the following day both these guides came back to me to say that they had been to Fish Hoek that day and low and behold not I nor my American friends were dreaming as they also saw the cross. This set me on the path of trying to get to the origin of the cross and a wonderful lady by the name of Beverly from the Fish Hoek tourist information centre solved my problem with the following explanation:

Years ago on the mountain there was a natural ledge of rock that today makes up the horizontal sector of the crucifix. There was no crucifix or cross at that time. About 20 years ago (still to be verified) a group of religious folk from Fish Hoek decided to use the mountain as a place of silent worship by having prayer meetings on the top of the mountain twice a week. This meant that the group had to ascend the mountain by foot. A foot path steadily but surely started to evolve on the mountain face. This footpath soon became a small trench and after a while rocks starting to naturally roll into the trench. Little did anybody know it but the footpath started at the bottom of the mountain exactly in the centre of the horizontal rock edge and continued straight up past the rock edge in a direct line up to the top of the mountain. The horizontal rock ledge is about 2/3 of the way up the mountain, so what was created was a perfect rock faced crucifix. Fish Hoekers all seem to know about this phenomenon that has now been visible for the last 2 years on their mountain. All in all when one sees the crucifix this whole experience of seeing the cross gets a very eerie feeling of a
very powerful force that goes with it. Go to Fish Hoek and experience the sensation yourself and you will see exactly what I mean.

The Supreme Court in Cape Town

We have a wonderful Supreme Court building that faces the Lions Head mountain area. If you ever see the building give the following a thought: Why does the building face in this direction and not in the direction of Queen Victoria Street which would then mean that a view of the beautiful tranquil company gardens would be enjoyed?

When the original plans for the court were submitted the plans showed that they would face Queen Victoria Street which would mean facing the opposite direction as to what the building faces today. The reason for the "turnaround" is that the Chief Justice of the Cape at the time of the building of the court, Lord De Villiers, saw the plans beforehand and he found that his office faced the late afternoon sun as well as the lively atmosphere of the adjacent road called Keerom Street. To avoid this he had the plans reversed and hence the building faces in the direction that it does today.

Cape Town's First Electrical Supply

I wonder how many Capetonians know where the first electrical supply came from in their city.

The first electrical supply ever generated in South Africa came from the power station set up in 1891 just below the Molteno Reservoir with the turbine being driven by steam. This steam later on was also used to feed the original Graaf Electrical Works which was based in Dock Rd.

Fynbos

In the South & South Western Cape region of South Africa we have a unique floral kindom which is named the Cape Floral Kingdom. The main member species of this kingdom is known as fynbos (Fine bush; Shrubbery). Some interesting and unusual facts about fynbos are:

The fynbos kingdom represents the smallest of the 6 floral kingdom's of the world

The fynbos kingdom covers .04% of the earths surface.

In quantity the kingdom has within it's plant range more species than all the plant species in the whole of Great Britain which is an area that is 5000 times bigger than the Cape Peninsula.

The 60 sq km of Table Mountain alone supports 1470 of these species.

There are some fynbos species of which the total world range consists of areas smaller than half a rugby field.


Articles submitted by: Selwyn Davidowitz
Email:cptn@mail.com

SATOUR accredited tourguide with an immense passion for Cape Town and its surrounds. To see more about Selwyn's services as a tourguide please click here .