The Barkly West Museum was established in 2000 in the old

Toll House A tollhouse or toll house is a building with accommodation for a toll collector, beside a tollgate on a toll road, canal, or toll bridge. History Many tollhouses were built by turnpike trusts in England, Wales and Scotland during the 18th and ...

beside the Barkly Bridge which crosses the

Vaal River The Vaal River ( ; Khoemana: ) is the largest tributary of the Orange River in South Africa. The river has its source near Breyten in Mpumalanga province, east of Johannesburg and about north of Ermelo and only about from the Indian Oce ...

Barkly West Barkly West is a town in the Northern Cape province of South Africa, situated on the north bank of the Vaal River west of Kimberley. Establishment and naming Barkly West was initially known as ''Klip Drift'' (sometimes written as Klipdrift). This ...

(

Frances Baard District Municipality The Frances Baard District Municipality (; ), previously the Diamantveld District Municipality, is one of the 5 districts of the Northern Cape province of South Africa. The seat of the municipality is Kimberley. As of 2022, the majority of its 434, ...

) in the

Northern Cape The Northern Cape ( ; ; ) is the largest and most sparsely populated Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up. Its capital is Kimberley, South Africa, Kimberley. It includes ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

Establishment

The museum was based on the collection mainly of minerals and archaeological finds gathered in the earlier twentieth century by Mining Commissioner Gideon Retief, which was once housed under imperfect conditions as the "Mining Commissioner's Museum" in the town. Following years of neglect, the toll house was restored and converted into a museum opened in Heritage Month, 2000.

Displays

The displays comprise exhibition cabinets on local

geology Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

and

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

and panels created by Kimberley's

McGregor Museum The McGregor Museum in Kimberley, South Africa, originally known as the Alexander McGregor Memorial Museum, is a multidisciplinary museum which serves Kimberley and the Northern Cape, established in 1907. Overview Housed at first in a purp ...

, on precolonial history, the alluvial diamond diggings and the origins and

social history Social history, often called history from below, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past. Historians who write social history are called social historians. Social history came to prominence in the 1960s, spreading f ...

of the town. The displays touch on mid-twentieth-century forced removals in Barkly West that were a consequence of the

Group Areas Act Group Areas Act was the title of three acts of the Parliament of South Africa enacted under the apartheid government of South Africa. The acts assigned racial groups to different residential and business sections in urban areas in a syste ...

under

Apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

. A section of the display is about the Canteen Kopje skull, a cast of which is exhibited. A stone tablet bearing the names of noteworthy visitors to the nearby Canteen Kopje site and the Mining Commissioner's Museum in the 1940s includes the signature of the Abbé

Henri Breuil Henri Édouard Prosper Breuil (28 February 1877 – 14 August 1961), often referred to as Abbé Breuil (), was a French Catholic Church, Catholic priest, archaeologist, anthropologist, ethnologist and geologist. He studied cave art in the Somme ( ...

. Photographs showing the Barkly Bridge and Vaal River in flood overlook the river and bridge. The museum has undergone a revamp in 2009–2010. The 125th anniversary of the opening of the "Vaal River Bridge, West Barkly" - as it was originally named - was celebrated here on June 26, 2010, with readings from the

Diamond Fields Advertiser The ''Diamond Fields Advertiser (DFA)'' is a daily newspaper published in Kimberley, South Africa, founded on 23 March 1878. The early days The earliest paper on the Diamond Fields was a weekly called the ''Diamond Field'', published from 1 ...

William Guybon Atherstone William Guybon Atherstone (; 1814–1898) was a medical practitioner, naturalist and geologist, one of the pioneers of South African geology and a member of the Cape Parliament. Life He arrived in South Africa with his parents as 1820 Sett ...

Emil Holub Emil Holub (7 October 1847 – 21 February 1902) was a Czechs, Czech physician, explorer, cartographer, and ethnographer in Africa. Early life Holub was born in Holice in eastern Kingdom of Bohemia, Bohemia (then within the Austrian Empire, no ...

Sol Plaatje Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje (9 October 1876 – 19 June 1932) was a South African intellectual, journalist, linguist, politician, translator and writer. Plaatje was a founding member and first General Secretary of the South African Native Natio ...

and

Dan Jacobson Dan Jacobson (7 March 1929 – 12 June 2014) was a South African novelist, short story writer, critic and essayist of Lithuanian Jewish descent. Early life and career Dan Jacobson was born 7 March 1929, in Johannesburg, South Africa, where his p ...

.Bruwer, R. 2010. Bridge's 125th anniversary celebrated. ''Noordkaap'' 30 June 2010 p 6

External links

Roger Webster interviews Ashley Bristow on the Barkly West Museum

References

{{authority control Museums established in 2000 Museums in the Northern Cape Archaeological museums in South Africa 2000 establishments in South Africa 21st-century architecture in South Africa Frances Baard District Municipality