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Title: Wale Street Police Station before demolition, Cape Town, 1983
Subject: Cape Town (South Africa), Architecture, Historic buildings, Demolition, Urban development
Description: An old landmark goes: the Old Dutch building in Wale Street known as "the old Wale Street Police Station", which is to make room for the new Provincial Administration offices and which is the subject of a query by REX (Leeuwendal-crescent), is one of the finest examples of the old "dark kamer" (roof chamber) type of old Dutch colonial architecture. One of the last, if not the last, of these fine buildings is the Martin Melck House in Strand-street. The "dark kamer" was a sort of domestic observation room from which the household could watch the arrival and departure of ships in Table Bay. The old Wale-street building was built in its present form in the later years of the eighteenth century. It was the early home of the Brand family, and in it Mayor G. B. van Zyl, M.P. for Sea Point, spent his early boyhood. The building was originally ornamented by one of the best of the pediments which Anton Anreith, the famous sculptor of that time, left as a heritage for posterity. The pediment, since lost, was of a martial design, with grapeshot and cannon-balls forming the motif of the design.. After many years as a police station the old building served for some time as a day nursery for working mothers.
Identifier: islandora:17186

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