Emmarentia boasts two of the oldest houses in Johannesburg—in Greenhill Road and the Marks Park Club House. These were the homes of the Geldenhuys brothers who owned the farm Braamfontein (included the suburb of Emmarentia) and were built from the 1880s.
Another old site is the Geldenhuys cemetery in Hill Road opposite Emmarentia Primary School. Louw and his wife Emmarentia, after which our suburb is named, are buried there.
There are a number of unnamed graves there as well as graves of Geldenhuys’s tenant farmers that farmed fruit on his farm after the South African war in 1902. Geldenhuys gave them refuge after Britain’s ‘scorched earth’ policy during the war saw many Afrikaans families left destitute and landless.
Your help needed
ERA is keen to identify other heritage buildings/places of interest in the suburb and, through the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation, put up blue plaques to highlight their history. Please send your ideas to: info@era.org.za
The gravestone of one of the sons of Louw and Emmarentia Geldenhuys
Heritage in Emmarentia—your ideas needed
Emmarentia boasts two of the oldest houses in Johannesburg—in Greenhill Road and the Marks Park Club House. These were the homes of the Geldenhuys brothers who owned the farm Braamfontein (included the suburb of Emmarentia) and were built from the 1880s.
Another old site is the Geldenhuys cemetery in Hill Road opposite Emmarentia Primary School. Louw and his wife Emmarentia, after which our suburb is named, are buried there.
There are a number of unnamed graves there as well as graves of Geldenhuys’s tenant farmers that farmed fruit on his farm after the South African war in 1902. Geldenhuys gave them refuge after Britain’s ‘scorched earth’ policy during the war saw many Afrikaans families left destitute and landless.
Your help needed
ERA is keen to identify other heritage buildings/places of interest in the suburb and, through the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation, put up blue plaques to highlight their history. Please send your ideas to: info@era.org.za
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