Latest heritage site unveiled
Ueckerman named Heidelberg after his hometown in Germany.
On February 4, Tony Burisch of the Heidelberg Heritage Association awarded the latest blue plaque for the new heritage site, namely The Victorian Lodge at 67 HF Verwoerd Street.
The property was once owned by the Lindeque family. One of the Lindeque daughters married Pieter Frederik Strydom.
Strydom was the first deacon in Suikerbosrand in 1842.
Heinrich Ueckermann purchased a piece of land from the farm Langlaagte from the owners Strydom and Venter to established a trading post in 1862.
With all the growth that happened, it became Heidelberg.
Heidelberg was proclaimed a town in 1866. The original building and premises was initially the Old Herberg Hotel, now Victoria Lodge.
It was one of the first hotels built in Heidelberg. The building was built roughly around 1870 by Ueckermann.
When building the hotel, he converted the stables into accommodations. Ueckerman named Heidelberg after his hometown in Germany.
At the time, when gold was discovered in 1886, there were about 15 hotels and over 35 taverns and drinking establishments.
Gen Piet Retief Viljoen was the mining commissioner when gold was discovered in the area.
The Herberg Hotel played a big part in history with the Second Anglo Boer War, as Veld Cornet Salmon van As was locked up in room seven before he was wrongly executed on June 23, 1902, by the British soldiers behind the Old Gaol (old jail) in Heidelberg.
