To market in Tongaat

The Tongaat market soon after it opened in 1947.

The Tongaat market soon after it opened in 1947.

Published Jul 17, 2021

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The picture this week features the Tongaat Daily Market at 323 Gopalall Hurbans (Main) Road, next to the old town hall. Opened in 1947, the building is a national monument and houses 18 fruit and veggie shops, a butchery and a general dealer.

Some of the current traders are the fourth generation to have traded at the market from its inception.

Architect and sculptor Ivan Mitford-Barberton designed the stucco reliefs on the pediments of the neo-baroque public buildings of Tongaat and Maidstone.

He also designed the monument of Jock of the Bushveld in Barberton and the bronze statue of a leopard in Hout Bay, where he lived, and the sculpture of Peter Pan at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Cape Town.

The Tongaat Daily Market this month. Shelley Kjonstad/ African News Agency (ANA)

The old picture comes from the walls of My Food Joint in Railway Street in Tongaat which celebrates the history of the sugar farming town with an array of old photographs.

Our photographer Shelley Kjonstad shot the new picture earlier this month before the devastating riots that have affected Tongaat as much as many of the small towns around KZN.

The Independent on Saturday

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