Discover 11 hidden attractions, cool sights, and unusual things to do in Kimberley (South Africa). Don't miss out on these must-see attractions: McGregor Museum, Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art Centre, and William Humphreys Art Gallery. Also, be sure to include Duggan-Cronin Gallery in your itinerary.
Below, you can find the list of the most amazing places you should visit in Kimberley (Northern Cape).
Table of Contents
McGregor Museum
Museum in Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa. The McGregor Museum in Kimberley, South Africa, originally known as the Alexander McGregor Memorial Museum, is a multidisciplinary museum which serves Kimberley and the Northern Cape, established in 1907.[1]
Address: 5 Atlas Street, 8301 Kimberley
Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art Centre
Museum in South Africa. Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art Centre is a rock engraving site with visitor centre on land owned by the !Xun and Khwe San situated about 16 km from Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa. It is a declared Provincial Heritage Site managed by the Northern Cape Rock Art Trust in association with the McGregor Museum. The engravings exemplify one of the forms often referred to as ‘Bushman rock art’ – or Khoe-San rock art – with the rock paintings of the Drakensberg, Cederberg and other regions of South Africa being generally better known occurrences. Differing in technique, the engravings have many features in common with rock paintings. A greater emphasis on large mammals such as elephant, rhino and hippo, in addition to eland, and an often reduced concern with depicting the human form set the engravings apart from the paintings of the sub-continent.[2]
William Humphreys Art Gallery
Also known as: William Humphreys-kunsgalery
Art gallery in Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa. The William Humphreys Art Gallery, in Kimberley, South Africa, was opened in 1952 and named after its principal benefactor, William Benbow Humphreys.[3]
Address: Cullinan Crescent, 8301 Kimberley
Duggan-Cronin Gallery
Also known as: Duggan-Cronin-versameling
Museum in Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa. The Duggan-Cronin Gallery, which is a satellite of the McGregor Museum in Kimberley, South Africa, houses in part the legacy in photographs and ethnographic artefacts of the photographer Alfred Martin Duggan-Cronin. It occupies a former dwelling known as The Lodge. Built in 1889, to a design by the architect Sydney Stent, The Lodge was the residence of John Blades Currey, manager of the London & S.A. Exploration Co. De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd acquired the extensive property of the London & S.A. Exploration Co in 1899, including The Lodge, which continued to be used as a residence.[4]
Big Hole
Also known as: Groot Gat
Massive hand-dug diamond mine pit. The Kimberley Mine or Tim Kuilmine is an open-pit and underground mine in Kimberley, South Africa, and claimed to be the deepest hole excavated by hand, although this claim is disputed.[5]
Northern Cape Heritage Resources Authority
The Northern Cape Heritage Resources Authority, previously called Ngwao Boswa jwa Kapa Bokone, and commonly known as 'Boswa', is a provincial heritage resources authority established in 2003 by the MEC for Sport, Arts and Culture in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa, and reconstituted in terms of the Northern Cape Heritage Resources Authority Act, 2013. It is an institution set up under the terms of the National Heritage Resources Act. It is mandated to care for that part of South Africa's national estate that is of provincial and local significance in the Northern Cape.
The Heritage Authority is best known as the custodian of the approximately 130 provincial heritage sites in the province, but is also responsible for administration of other forms of protection of heritage established under the terms of the National Heritage Resources Act.[6]
Honoured Dead Memorial
Memorial park in Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa. The Honoured Dead Memorial is a provincial heritage site in Kimberley in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. It is situated at the meeting point of five roads, and commemorates those who died defending the city during the Siege of Kimberley in the Anglo-Boer War.
In 1986, it was described in the Government Gazette as
Cecil John Rhodes commissioned Sir Herbert Baker to design a memorial...which commemorates those who fell during the Kimberley Siege.
Rhodes sent Baker to Greece to study ancient memorials - the Nereid Monument at Xanthus greatly influenced his design.
The monument is built of sandstone quarried in the Matopo Hills in Zimbabwe and is the tomb of 27 soldiers. It features an inscription that Rhodes specifically commissioned Rudyard Kipling to write.
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 (facing the Free State). It is surrounded by shells from the Boer Long Tom. The memorial was dedicated on 28 November 1904. It was vandalised in 2010 when brass fittings were broken off parts of the gun.[7]
St Cyprian's Cathedral
Church in Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa. The Cathedral Church of St Cyprian the Martyr, Kimberley, is the seat of the Bishop of the Kimberley and Kuruman, Anglican Church of Southern Africa. The building was dedicated in 1908, becoming a Cathedral when the Synod of Bishops mandated formation of the new Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman in October 1911. The first Bishop, the Rt Revd Wilfrid Gore Browne, was enthroned there on 30 June 1912.
The Parish of St Cyprian dates back to 1871 when a chapelry of the Parish of All Saints, Du Toit's Pan, Diocese of Bloemfontein, at first met in a tent in the nearby New Rush, on the Diamond Fields, a place later renamed Kimberley.[8]
Sol Plaatje Museum
Museum in Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa. The Sol Plaatje Museum and Library is in Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa, in a house where Solomon T. Plaatje lived during his last years at 32 Angel Street, Malay Camp. It was here that Plaatje wrote Mhudi.
The Sol Plaatje Educational Trust was set up in 1991 to serve as a custodian for this and other legacy projects. In 1992, 32 Angel Street was declared a National Monument (Provincial Heritage Site under 1999 legislation. Plaatje's grave in West End Cemetery, Kimberley, is also a declared provincial heritage site.[9]
Queens Park Kimberley
Park, Relax in park
Address: Park Road, Kimberley
Eureka Diamond
Also known as: Eureka-diamant
The Eureka Diamond was the first diamond discovered in South Africa. It originally weighed 21.25 carats, and was later cut to a 10.73-carat cushion-shaped brilliant, which is currently on display at the Mine Museum in Kimberley. The discovery of diamonds in South Africa led to the Kimberley Diamond Rush, and marked the beginning of the Mineral Revolution.[10]