Different prison, more prisoners

I had a double-take reading about the history of the Old Gaol in your very welcome “Time Capsule Edition” (Makana Sharp! 21 April). Was it possible that such a small building built to house 200 prisoners could at one stage have housed 2000?

Then I realised the mistake. Your reporter was clearly at cross-purposes with local historian, Fleur Way-Jones, and the article confused the original Old Gaol (now better known as the “Yellow House” or the “Messenger’s House”) in High Street with the building now more commonly referred to as the “Old Gaol” in Somerset Street.

It is the latter “Old Gaol”, a much bigger complex, which according to Emily O’Meara’s Grahamstown Reflected housed as many as 2 748 prisoners in 1857! That prison was still operating in the 1970s at which stage it was the oldest prison in the country.

Be that as it may, it is good to draw attention to Grahamstown’s much neglected historical built environment and the GM would do well to monitor more closely the activities of the municipality’s Aesthetics Committee.

It is meant to be the custodian of our conservation ethic but is not fulfilling its mandate and has not done so for a number of years. When last did we hear anything about the need to preserve Grahamstown’s “historical core”, its conservation area which is the Aesthetics Committee’s area of jurisdiction?

As in the case of places like Graaff-Reinet, the character of Grahamstown’s historical built environment is one of our greatest assets and should be a drawcard for tourism but unlike Graaff-Reinet which makes maximum advantage of its historical character with huge benefits for the local economy, Grahamstown’s tourism potential is largely untapped.

Jock McConnachie