GRAHAMSTOWN: CHURCH SQUARE

I keep meaning to show off more of the town I live in. These days I have little reason to visit the CBD as I mostly buy groceries on its perimeter. Nonetheless, here is a view of the lovely façades of buildings that line one side of Church Square – often referred to as lower High Street.

This pretty green and white building is the original Muirhead & Gowie store that abuts the Grocott’s Mail building I will move onto next. The architect of this building was Hubert William Walker, who definitely set out to make it look very attractive with moulded pilasters and relief plasterwork. The walls are constructed in a method known as English Bond brickwork. This, I gather, combines alternate courses of stretchers and headers and is regarded as one of the strongest bonds and so is commonly used for bridges and other engineering projects. You can just glimpse the octagonal louvred corner tower supported by stub columns.

Just for fun, I include an extract from the Grahamstown Journal Tuesday 12 June 1900 which mentions this shop in its heyday:

… The bride wore a pretty travelling costume of grey, which was the tasteful work of Messrs. Muirhead & Gowie, while the bridesmaid wore a cream dress with hat to match, also from Messrs. Muirhead & Gowie. The wedding party carried lovely bouquets from the famous gardens of Messrs. W. & C. Gowie.

Right next to this is the Grocott’s Mail building which has both Victorian and Flemish features. While the building bears the date 1869-1906, the present façade was added in after a devastating fire in 1906 which caused the roof to collapse.

An enormous fire in 2005 was also the reason for a very careful reconstruction of the late Victorian Bon Marche building. It was with infinite care that a red brick external skin was erected, stiffened with concealed concrete columns. Attached to this are exact copies of the original mouldings sculpted out of fibreglass.  How fortunate we are that this could be done!