“The biggest manmade hole in South Africa, with so much to do and enjoy surrounding it. And it wont even empty your wallet!”

“WHAG, as it is affectionately known by Kimberlites, is considered one of the finest art museums in South Africa. In 1948 William Humphreys (1889 - 1965) donated to the city a substantial portion of his personal collection of 16th and 17th Century Dutch and Flemish Old Masters, British and French paintings, antique furniture and other objects d'art. The gallery, named after its principal benefactor, opened in 1952. This gift combined with the South African works of art brought together by members of the Art Section of the Kimberley Athenaeum and The Max Greenberg Bequest formed the nucleus of the collection. The Humphreys Loan Collection and Timlin Collection on indefinite loan from De Beers Consolidated Mines Limited, augment it. More recently the Meyer Collection of European and Oriental Porcelain and the Lawson Collection of Old Master Drawings and Prints have been acquired. Guided tours are arranged on request. At present the Art Gallery concentrates on collecting South African works of art. Apart from its primary function as a museum of art, this Gallery serves the community as an educational and cultural centre. Its activities include temporary exhibitions, art workshops mainly for children, development stimulation classes for pre-school children, craft workshops for unemployed women, lectures, video shows and concerts. They also have a successful outreach programme in which we take graphic exhibitions to the small towns of the Northern Cape province where learners are exposed to world of art. ”

“The Duggan-Cronin Gallery in Kimberley is a photographic museum displaying the photographs of Alfred Duggan-Cronin, Aubrey Elliot, Jean Morris and Alice Mertens. Their photographs of the indigenous peoples of southern Africa, taken between 1919 and 1980, show aspects of traditional life and dress now largely vanished. Duggan-Cronin arrived in Kimberley in 1897. He worked in the De Beers compounds, where he began to build up a photographic record of the different tribes working on the mines. Encouraged by Maria Wilman, he undertook expeditions to the main tribal areas, where he photographed the people before the Western influence drastically changed their traditional ways of life. The Duggan-Cronin collection consists of negatives and prints, as well as artefacts of material culture of the tribes, including beadwork, costumes, pottery, iron tools and wood carvings. A selection of his photographs have been included in publications such as The Bushmen Tribes of Southern Africa and The Bantu Tribes of South Africa. Today the McGregor Museum is responsible for the maintenance of this collection. which is housed in a building in Belgravia originally known as The Lodge, but today simply known as the Duggan-Cronin Gallery.”

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“Not only was the McGregor Museum one of the earliest museums in South Africa, it is still considered to be one of the finest. In 1973 the museum staff and collections moved from the building in Chapel Street to these new premises on Atlas Street in Belgravia, the building that has in the past served as a sanatorium, a hotel and a convent. The McGregor museum is the custodian of a number of other facilities in Kimberley and further afield. An exhibition on the Liberation Struggle as it touched on the lives of the people in the Northern Cape, is relevant and enlightening. Other exhibitions which are popular attractions and a constant source of reference to schools, local and foreign visitors include the Ancestors Gallery, the Enviro Zone, the Convent School Display, the Siege Gallery and the Hall of Religions . The museum houses major natural history and cultural history collections including a botanical herbarium, zoology collections, a history archive, ethnography collections, archaeology and rock art collections, physical anthropology, palaeontology and geology collections. Most of these fields are represented by professional staff and collection managers, and the collections and associated research programmes are reflected in permanent and temporary exhibits in various sections of the museum as well as in outreach programmes in the province and displays in smaller museums. Address: Atlas Street, Kimberley, 8301 Phone: +27 538311761”

“Lovely indoor and outdoor setting in recreation of historic Kimberley centre Good food Outdoor play area for children”

“Child Friendly - indoor supervised play area Good Pizza and milkshakes SPECIALS Tuesday special - buy one get one free pizza or pasta Thursday special - eat as much as you like for R70 Sunday special - child eats free (with paying adult) ”

“The engravings at Wildebeest Kuil (18km from The Solomon on the west of Kimberley) were made between 1,000 and 2,000 years ago by the 'pecking' technique: a hard, pointed stone was used to chip away the outer crust of the rock, exposing the lighter coloured rock beneath. With time, the exposed portions become as dark as the outer crust through weathering and the build-up of desert varnish. San and Khoe people, researchers and other stakeholders joined together to conserve the engravings here - more than 200 are spread over a small hill. A visit here can be a deeply moving experience, and an informative one for school groups. The site, surrounded by land owned by the !Xun and Khwe San people, is on a servitude set aside for rock art conservation and public access. The rock art custodians/guides will help make your visit special. The experience begins at a visitor centre, where there are displays, and an auditorium with a twenty minute introductory film. The 800 m walk-way weaves up and over the hill via a number of information boards. Your guides will provide commentary and will answer your questions. On your return, the shop at the Centre has art and craftwork from the !Xun and Khwe community. Rock art and related books also available. In South Africa, there are 15,000 recorded rock art sites and probably as many as yet unrecorded. The art occurs in two forms: engravings and paintings. Engravings are found mostly on the dry inland plateau of South Africa, while paintings occur mostly in the mountainous areas, such as the Drakensberg and the Cederberg. Most of the rock art in Southern Africa was made by Later Stone Age people, ancestors of the historical San. People who called themselves /Xam from the northern Karoo and the Postmasburg District, who were interviewed in the 1870s, said their fathers had made engravings of animals. Some of South Africa’s rock art has been linked with Khoekhoe herders and with Bantu-speaking farmers. It is not known exactly how old the engravings at Wildebeest Kuil are, but it is estimated they were made between 1,000 and 2,000 years ago. Engraved stones have been found at Wonderwerk Cave near Kuruman in levels dating between 2,000 and 10,000 years ago and rock paintings have been dated in southern Namibia to about 27 000 years ago, indicating that the tradition of Southern African art is an exceptionally long one. An engraved piece of ochre from Blombos Cave on the south Cape coast is dated to 77 000 years ago. Research indicates that the engravings are not products of idle doodling, nor are they straightforward narratives, but comprise a sophisticated religious art associated with rituals in San society mediated by medicine people or shamans. It was believed that power received through controlled use of trance could harnessed to heal the sick, control animals, and make rain. It is suggested that many of the engravings were inspired by visions experienced during trance, and were depicted on the rocks so that others could share and draw inspiration from them. They may relate particularly to rain-making rituals. Sites chosen by the artists for their engravings were probably significant places in local beliefs. The andesite rock surfaces at Wildebeest Kuil may have been, to the artists, a kind of interface with the spirit world. A number of curious “unfinished” images of animals at Wildebeest Kuil may represent the “luring” of the power of these animals from the spirit world behind the rock. The magical expanses of smooth, glaciated rock surface at Driekopseiland and Nooitgedacht may similarly have been marked with rock art because they were in some way special places in local religious belief. Some engravings from Wildebeest Kuil were removed and exhibited at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London in 1886, and are currently in the collection of the British Museum. Others are on display in Kimberley at the William Humphreys Art Gallery and the McGregor Museum. Early removals of the art were often rationalised in terms of preserving the art in museum contexts. We now know that placement of the art within a site was significant, and removal thus destroys part of its meaning. (Text courtesy of David Morris and the McGregor Museum)”

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