Appeal date for Rimers Creek is set

An appeal hearing against the rezoning proclamation of the Rimers Creek area is finally set for later this month.

The rezoning proclamation – published in the Provincial Gazette by Umjindi Local Municipality (ULM) on July 22 of last year, will be heard by the Mpumalanga Townships Board in ULM Council Chambers on March 22.

A petition objecting to the proposed rezoning was signed by almost 500 people following the illegal bulldozing of the Central Mill in Rimers Creek site in May 2007.

“The first tribunal hearing that was presided over by the municipality took place on November 13 of that year, so it’s been a long journey, and one can only hope that justice will finally prevail.

“However, this remains to be seen, as indications are that attempts are already being made to stop the township’s board hearing, which is hardly surprising,” said Chris Rippon of the Friends of the Barberton Museum.

“The proceedings, similar to a court case, could take several hours and any interested parties or persons may be present as observers only, not as part of the official proceedings. There will be one appellant only, because objections are considered the same where a petition is involved, and observers will not be able to speak unless permission is granted to do so,” Rippon explained to Barberton Times.

The historic site of the mill was recently included among the top-10 endangered cultural heritage sites in South Africa by the Heritage Monitoring Project (HMP) in conjunction with the Heritage Association of South Africa.

The HMP is a civil-society initiative which monitors and reports on heritage law reform and enforcement, monitoring and evaluation.

It provides an independent voice for tracking progress of the realisation of heritage and cultural rights in South Africa.

Rimers Creek (originally known as Umvoti Creek) is the historical heart of Barberton.

It is where the Barber brothers, Fred and Henry, and their cousin Graham discovered the Barber Reef in 1884, which led to a gold rush. Shortly thereafter, the Umvoti Reef was discovered by the Rimer Brothers, Richard Guy and James Cook.

The Central Mill is where the ore from their early workings was crushed and where the first ore from the historic Sheba Gold Mine was sent by Edwin Bray in 1885.

The mill was owned by a syndicate to which the Rimers and Barbers belonged and was the nucleus around which Barberton developed.

Rimers Creek is where Barberton was born in 1884 when David Wilson, the mining commissioner, broke a bottle of gin on a rock and christen the town Barberton after the Barbers.

There was apparently a choice between Barberton and Rimerton but as there were three Barbers and only two Rimers the vote went in favour of Barberton. However, to perpetuate the Rimer brothers’ association with the area, the Umvoti Creek was renamed Rimers Creek.

What heritage conservation activists, Marjorie Nuns refered to as a “massive Berlin-type wall”, which was almost complete when the rezoning was proclaimed, now surrounds the site and the entrance to where Barberton began, denying the community of its heritage.