Harrismith Town Hall

It’s quite an amazing building for a dorpie! When it was being built sensible locals called it Bain’s Folly, believing the mayor Stewart Bain – my great-grandad – was overdoing things. What’s wrong with the dorpsaal we already got!?

Do we really need this. concerned citizens may have asked?

and this inside (thanks to Sandra & Hennie Cronje and Biebie de Vos):

Well, ready or not, we got The Grand Old Man of Harrismith’s dream town hall:

Building operations:

Newly-completed:

In front of it was the market square, which later was turned into an ornamental garden once cars with tighter turning circles than ossewas were invented:

The main entrance and the stage after a recent revamp:

And the setting for this beautiful building is spectacular:

In the end the townsfolk liked it, some called Stewart Bain The Grand Old Man of Harrismith, and he was given a fancy funeral when he died in 1939.

~~~oo0oo~~~