Cradock (South Africa)

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Cradock
Cradock (South Africa)
Cradock
Cradock
Coordinates 32 ° 10 ′  S , 25 ° 37 ′  E Coordinates: 32 ° 10 ′  S , 25 ° 37 ′  E
Basic data
Country South Africa

province

Eastern Cape
District Chris Hani
ISO 3166-2 ZA-EC
local community Inxuba Yethemba
Residents 36,671 (2011)
founding 1812
The church in Cradock
The church in Cradock

Cradock is a town in the municipality of Inxuba Yethemba , Chris Hani District , Eastern Cape Province in the Republic of South Africa . The city lies in the valley of the upper reaches of the Great Fish River . It is the administrative seat of Inxuba Yethemba Local Municipality , formerly Cradock Local Municipality . In 2011 the city had 36,671 inhabitants.

Geographical location and traffic

The city was built in a wide and flat valley basin of the Great Fish River and lies between the foothills of the Winter Mountains in the east and those of the Bankberg massif in the west. This basin belongs to the Great Fish River Basin ( Fish River Basin ).

The N10 national road and a railway line run through Cradock . Both create connections to Middelburg in the north and on to Bloemfontein and to Port Elizabeth on the Indian Ocean to the south .

The regional road R61 crosses Cradock as a west-east connection. Traffic from Graaf-Reinet passes Cradock on this route and continues east to Tarkastad and Queenstown .

The city has a small regional airport ( IATA code : CDO).

Population, employment situation

The population consists mainly of members of the Xhosa and descendants of immigrant Europeans.

The majority of jobs are provided by companies that process and manufacture wool , mohair and fruits, as well as cattle , dairy and fodder industries .

history

Thomas Baines around 1860 ( National Library of Australia )

The city was founded in 1812 (other information 1813) and was named after John Francis Cradock , the governor of the Cape Colony from 1811 to 1813. The city was intended as a fort for the border wars , but never got into a military conflict with the Xhosa . In 1848 Thomas Baines visited Cradock. He reported 9,000 inhabitants (4,300 Europeans, 4,490 natives) and noted in his notes the English and Dutch influenced architecture, which is remarkable for the remote region.

In 1867 a representative church was built. Cradock received a railway connection in 1881.

In June 1985 the Cradock Four , four members of the opposition United Democratic Front , were abducted, tortured and killed on their way from Port Elizabeth to Cradock. After the end of apartheid , it became known that the act had been initiated by officers of the security department of the South African Police operating undercover .

Attractions

  • The church building of the resident Dutch Reformed Church , built in 1867, is modeled on the building of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London and is very similar to its prominent model.
  • A few old houses from the Victorian Historicism period are on Market Street ( The Tuishuise ) in the center of Cradock.
  • Great Fish River Museum , founded in 1979, shows the history of the first settlers from 1806, regional culture and lifestyle, old furniture, ceramics and photographs with its collections. Its building is part of the city's historical architectural heritage.
  • The Schreiner House is a museum in memory of the South African writer and feminist Olive Schreiner , who worked here between 1867 and 1870. She was best known for her novel Story of an African Farm . The museum is a branch of the National English Literary Museum in Grahamstown . Her younger brother William Philip Schreiner served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1899 to 1902.
  • an old watermill ( Old Water Mill )
  • The Van Riebeeck Karoo Garden is an area with botanical features of the region.
  • The grave of Olive Schreiner is located south of the city near Buffelkop .

Surroundings

Climate, geology

Cradock is in the area of ​​the Great Karoo and benefits economically from the soil and favorable water conditions. The annual amount of precipitation in the mountains allows intensive agriculture due to the available surface water. The climatic situation in the valley around Cradock is characterized by evapotranspiration phenomena in the Great Fish River Basin .

The defining rock in the area around Cradock is sandstone from the Escourt Formation of the lower Beaufort Group . There are some quarries here where a light gray, fine-grained and calcitically bound sandstone is extracted.

sons and daughters of the town

literature

  • Mike Raath, Dorothy Pitman, Jenny Bennie: Museums of the Eastern Cape. SAMA Eastern Cape, Port Elizabeth 1996, ISBN 0-620-19916-4 .
  • WR Oosterhuis: Stone in Southern Africa. UNESCO, IAEG, SADC, Paris 1999, ISBN 88-8138-044-7 .
  • EAW Tordiffe, BJV Botha: The Relationship between Macro-Topography and the Groundwater Quality in the Great Fish River Basin, Eastern Cape Province. In: Water SA, Vol. 7. (1981) No. 3., pp. 113 ff.

Web links

Commons : Cradock  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 2011 census , accessed November 22, 2013
  2. ↑ Website on the Cradock Four , accessed on September 18, 2019