My 10km Parktown route vie Melville
I’ve decided to do my own 10km heritage run through Parktown on some weekend mornings. I started running about a year ago after giving up smoking. Problem is that I find running a bit pointless..as well as pretty boring (apologies to all my serious running friends).
I will concede that besides the obvious health benefits, it does sometimes help me think things through. The other thing is that I’ve never run 10km in my life, so since I’ll be doing a fair amount of walking (I can only manage about 4km straight at the moment), I figured it would be a great idea to take in and catalogue some of the historic houses in Parktown for the blog/story. Each time I’ll take a slightly different route and eventually try and cover the whole of Parktown.
A large part of the story I’m working on takes place in the Parktown and Hillbrow area in 1912 and it’s where this blog will eventually end up. It was the realisation that Parktown was once all houses (and not the Joburg General Hospital and Teachers Training College precinct with a highway running though it we know today) which was the second wave of inspiration for my interest in Johannesburg’s heritage that feeds the story.
As a teenager, I lived on Clarendon Circle on the Hillbrow/Parktown border between 1988 and 1990 and always loved the few old houses left behind. Most of them were demolished in the late 60s and early 70s before I was born. Sources tell me the apartheid government of the time had no issues with tearing down the suburb as it was once a British stronghold of wealth and influence, especially around the time of the Jameson Raid in 1896 and Anglo Boer War 1899-1902, and a bit of a thorny reminder.
Johannesburg 1912 - suburb by suburb research 
I also lived very near Clarendon Circle. At Holland House (do you perhaps have a picture of that grand old house.). It was then a boarding house . This was in the late 40’s. I can still in my mind,s eye draw a sketch of the grat house, upstairs and downstairs,and the orchard, tennis court, fowl run , outbuildings and carriage house. Logan House and Argyll House a few doors down Princess Place were also by then boarding houses. We used to catch the tram up and down Twist street to school at End Street Convent. Strange how clearly I see all that more than 60 years ago and have forgotten things from 5 years ago. Sorry I,m not too good at modern technology – could you please add my e-mail to your list. It is gal.nel@telkomsa.net
Hi I lived there in the early 50s at Holland House, also remember the house well and have good memories of it.Roy Harris