The Forgotten Staircase

Some time this week I decided to swing through Mill Park to do a new cache that was published in the area. The cache is called The Forgotten Staircase and on my way there I kinda wondered what the name of the cache referred to.  Turned out to be an actual stairway linking Mill Park with Target Kloof below. While looking for the cache three separate people came past so, looking at how overgrown the steps are, the only people who seem to have forgotten the stairway is the municipality who hasn't cleared it for probable some years now. 

Bench with a view

Every now and then I get a request via e-mail from people who used to live in Port Elizabeth asking me to take a photo of a spot that holds a significant place in their memories. I have to be honest and say that I haven't really made lots of effort to go out and look for those places, but that is now changing. Over the last week or so I have spent my lunch hours looking for places and graves all over PE and these photos I will be posting from time to time.

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I received e-mails from Darin and Mike within days of each other both asking me to post a pic of a spot at the end of Mill Park Road in Mill Park. Both said that the spot was the ideal place to just sit and wind down after a hard day. The view from the bench takes in the Baakens Valley with Walmer on the other side.

Mill Park #4

The most well known feature of Mill Park is the Grey School. Here we are looking at the back, from a viewpoint in Mill Park, across one of the tributaries of the Baakens River, which has created many interesting ravines around the perimeter of the suburb. Note the security vehicle parked under the tree. A downside of the ravines is that they provide easy exit points for housebreakers to disappear into, so high walls, armed response, electric fences etc have sadly become part of the picture now.

Mill Park #3

As described in the first post 2 days ago, Mill Park is on the edge of the Baakens Valley. So from many streets in the suburb, you get glimpses of the hills across the valley, and many houses, such as these, have lovely views into the kloofs, and the opposite cliffs.

Mill Park #2

Established a century ago, Mill Park still has the atmosphere of a gracious lifestyle when life was lived at a slower pace. The lovely well established trees which line the streets soften the effect of all the high walls in front of the homes, and the trees popping over the tops of the walls give a sort of "secret garden" intrigue as you drive along.

Mill Park

Since we recently welcomed anon and arnieo to this blog, both of whom coincidentally live in Houston Texas and used to live in the PE suburb of Mill Park, we thought we'd show a couple of views of this attractive suburb.

Mill Park has an interesting history. According the the fascinating "Port Elizabeth in Bygone Days, written in 1947 by JJ Redgrave, "the present Mill Park area derived its name from the fact that there was in the early days an old Mill on the land overlooking the Baakens River"

In 1839 Mill Property belonged to Hougham, and the Government rented it, with the old mill and a small shanty house, as the Baakens River Leper Institution. By 1846 the Government had decided to move all the lepers and paupers to the leper colony on Robben Island.

The first areas to develop in Port Elizabeth were Central and Richmond Hill, Central being where the settlers who arrived in 1820 began building their homes, and part of Richmond Hill being set aside as the "Location for Native Strangers". We have dealt with this in previous posts.

As the town grew and more labourers were required to work on the development of roads and infrastructure, as well as the thriving port, the space in Richmond Hill became too small. By 1863 the Mill Farm was owned by a Town Councillor Mr T. W. Gubb, and he applied for permission to have Xhosa workers build huts on his land. It became home to around 800 squatters, and became known as "Gubb's Location". Gubb sold the land in 1867, but the name stuck.

Eleanor Lorimer, in her book Panorama of Port Elizabeth, describes conditions in the Location as "unsightly and verminous. There were no roads, no drains, no lights of course, and water and sanitary arrangements were primitive. "

This led to an outbreak of Bubonic Plague, and the location, by then owned by the Mill Park Estate and Land Company, was closed by the Plague Board in 1903, and the residents re-located to Red Location.

In the early 1900s the area was subdivided, and large houses were built, like the Old Mill House, shown above.