A walk around the Mining District

We decided to take the City Sightseeing bus 🚌 again today. There were a couple of places we still wanted to see, and the easiest way to get to them was to use the bus 🚌.

Our first stop was the mining district, a large open-air museum tracing the history of mining in Johannesburg.

The area is in downtown Johannesburg and centres around Main Street, which has been home to the city’s mining headquarters ever since Johannesburg was founded 130 years ago. Back then, the city was little more than a dusty mining camp filled with fortune hunters and prospectors, but in the space of just three years, it became the biggest settlement in South Africa. Through the 1890s and early 1900s, the low-rise buildings that dotted the landscape were steadily replaced with taller, grander edifices that reflected the metropolitan’s sudden enormous wealth.

Today, you can explore the city’s early mining history in this pedestrianised area. Old relics of the gold rush such as mining headgear, stamp presses, rail locomotives, and covered wagons line the way, complemented by information boards explaining what you are seeing.

There is a striking sculpture in the front of the Chamber of Mines building on Pixley ka Isaka Seme Street. It depicts a mineworker at work at the mine face and was erected in 2007. A plaque next to the statue reads: “The monument represents the symbolic and historical role played by mineworkers in shaping the economics of the mining towns and labour-sending areas, in particular, and that of South Africa, in general.”

One of the most noteworthy buildings on Main Street is the former headquarters of the Anglo-American mining company. It was modelled on the League of Nations complex in Geneva and is home to sculptures by celebrated South African artists, fountains, and an urban garden. The undoubted highlight is the bronze sculpture of a herd of leaping impalas.

Also in the area is the huge Magistrate’s Court, completed in 1936. It is an extremely impressive building! Outside the front entrance is a statue of Nelson Mandela shadow-boxing. It is the work of sculptor Marco Cianfanelli.

Opposite the Magistrate's Court is Chancellor House, once the offices of the first black law firm in the city, Mandela and Tambo Attorneys. You can't go in, but there are window displays focusing on the lives of Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo.

We really enjoyed our time in the mining district and learned a lot, both about mining for gold and other resources and about Mandela's time as a lawyer working hard to represent black people in the city.Læs mere