Diggers and soldiers at rest

Fortune seekers and veterans are buried at New Roodepoort Cemetery, which has been taking Joburg's dead for over half a century.
A QUAINT, old world cemetery to the north of Dobsonville, lies sandwiched between Soweto and Durban Roodepoort Deep. Called the New Roodepoort Cemetery, it was opened in 1951.

The new Roodepoort Cemetery has a section for military graves at its centreThe new Roodepoort Cemetery has a section for military graves at its centreBordered by Bram Fischerville and facing Roodepoort Road, this cemetery services northern Soweto and its surrounding suburbs. Along Kerkhof Street, lies the Old Roodepoort Cemetery, which was opened 1895, and many of the graves date back to the early 1920s.

Of the old cemetery, Johannesburg City Parks says: “Shaded under trees, these graves beckon us back to a time when South Africa had emerged from ‘the war to end all wars’, and had little idea of what the young 20th century was still to bring.”

The new Roodepoort Cemetery is a pleasant, small cemetery with a few large trees and a section for military graves at its centre. Soldiers who served in the Anglo Boer War are buried here.

City Parks is the section 21 company responsible for managing Joburg’s parks, cemeteries, open green areas, street trees and conserved spaces. It was established in 2000 as the custodian of this green heritage. It works to set up a greener environment for the present community and future generations.

City Parks develops, maintains and preserves public open spaces and the natural environment, greens the city and secures burial space for the future.

Roodepoort was once an important gold reef, attracting diggers and fortune-seekers right from the 1880s. White farmers had started settling in the area in 1854; in 1884, Fred and Harry Struben found gold and declared their Confidence Reef, in the heart of present day Kloofendal Nature Reserve.

Confidence Reef ran dry after a year, but when the main Witwatersrand Reef was discovered in Langlaagte in Johannesburg in 1886, gold diggings resumed in the area today known as Roodepoort. Four townships were laid out: Roodepoort in 1887 and again in 1898; Maraisburg in 1887, Hanberg in 1888; and Florida in 1888 and 1898.

In 1904, the settlement consisted of wood and iron houses, scattered on the bare veld. By 1907, the population stood at 22 100, according to the Roodepoort Record of 28 March 1997.

The town consisted of general dealers, chemists, bakers, tailors, wagon builders, blacksmiths and transport contractors. Its growth was rapid. Water pipes were laid in 1906, and in 1910 electricity lit the town streets and houses, replacing paraffin street lamps.

In 1977, Roodepoort received city status. Today it consists of an area of roughly 180km2 in size.