Guest-house Association of Tshwane East Walking Tour of Historic Church Square

We spent a delightful Sunday morning visiting the Heritage Foundation tagged buildings on Church Square. Pretoria is the only city in South Africa that has such a historic city centre.

There are many facts and fables about the old building. Just one of the interesting buildings is the National Bank and Mint - 1893:

• Erected on ground owned by John Struben
• ZAR Mint first mint in the Southern Hemisphere
• Neo-Renaissance building
• Frank Emley designed the array of capitals, pediments, pilasters, round arches and ornamental friezes. Anton van Wouw, sculpted decorative friezes and capitals for the façade
• The Corner stone contains  with a a lead casket a copy of the Bank Concession, Bank Statutes, Bank Note Law, Prospectus of first State Loan, various newspapers of the 6th of July 1892, £1 bank note, gold and silver coins, and signatures of the Pretoria staff of the bank
• The mint produced the famous Kruger sovereigns
• A famous coin is the ‘Sammy Marks Tickey’. Sammy Marks was 'given' the mint for a  day to show appreciation for the donation of £10, 000 made by Marks towards the statue of Paul Kruger commissioned for the city
• Sammy Marks produced 215 of the smallest coins in the country, the tickey, in gold
• Only one of the three printing presses brought from Berlin by Freiderich Munscheid in 1891 remains and is still in working order, it was moved from the ZAR Mint to the new location in Midrand