The fountain in Cullinan restored
The fountain at the McHardy Museum was repaired after a long time.
A fountain built by Italian prisoners of war (POW), interred at the nearby Zonderwater POW camp around 1943, has finally been restored to its former glory with the help of locals such as John Lincoln and Byron Phitides.
They moved it from its original position to a new site in the garden of the McHardy House Museum in Cullinan.
The fountain was built in an area called Hallsdorp, or Holtzdorp, a tiny diggers’ town on the farm Byenestpoort, named after the diamond mine engineer, Holtz.
The village, located south of the Premier Diamond Mine in the early part of the last century, was demolished at the end of the Second World War.
The area became derelict, and the fountain forgotten for decades.
Zonderwater was the biggest detention camp built by the Allies during World War Two. From April 1941 to January 1947 the camp, built 43 km from Pretoria, hosted over 100 000 Italian soldiers captured by the British on the northern and eastern African fronts.
The Zonderwater human adventure started in a tent city in 1941. In 1943, they transformed it into a permanent built-up area formed by red bricks and wooden constructions, then bound to become almost a legend.
There were 14 blocks, each of them normally made up of four camps, where each camp hosted 2 000 men. Therefore, a block could accommodate 8 000 prisoners.
Overall, Zonderwater had a total capacity of 112 000 men. Much had been written about the art and craft of these Italian prisoners of war and their work can today still be seen in and around Cullinan.
The forgotten fountain they built at Hallsdorp was located by John Lincoln from the Cullinan Heritage Society.
John applied for permission to move it to an area where it could be appreciated by the many visitors to the village of Cullinan.
His role in the project was the environmentalist who had to approach the South African Heritage Agency’s provincial authorities to get permission to move the fountain.
They proposed the fountain be moved from its original position to a new site in the garden of the McHardy House Museum, in Oak Avenue in Cullinan.
The volunteers of the Heritage Society worked to secure the fountain to prevent any breakage of the stone structure.
With the help of Petra Mine, which supplied the essential crane and transport, the move took place with no major obstacles and no damage to the 75-year-old structure.
