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 was overdoing things. What’s wrong with the dorpsaal we already got!?
Do we really need this?
and this inside (thanks to Sandra & Hennie Cronje and Biebie de Vos):
Well, we got it.
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~~~
Vrystaat Confessions 
It would be good to know what happened to all the photos of town sports groups etc and other memorabilia that used to be in the Carnegie Library and museum. I remember looking at them in awe as a boy. When I last visited 2 years ago the rooms were bare.
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Hi Anthony. The story I heard was after the big revamp of the building it started leaking and so I suppose stuff was removed. I’ll ask the local historians and try and get some info and post it here. Thanks for visiting. Peter Koos Swanepoel
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