Museums and Monuments

Activities - Education, Culture and Heritage - Museums and Monuments

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Arend Dieperink Museum

Address: 97 Thabo Mbeki Drive, Mokopane

Tel: +27 (0) 15 491 9735

E-Mail: yselh@mweb.co.za

The Arend Dieperink Museum contains a valuable cultural historical collection of Sotho and Voortrekker artefacts and is housed in a graceful stone building originally built as a school. The museum portrays the history of the town and surroundings from the time of the ape-men at Makapan’s Cave, right through to the Anglo Boer War and recent times. Mampoer and fresh bread are available on request.

Bakone Malapa Open Air Museum

Address: Located about 9km South of City of Polokwane along the road to Lebowakgomo (Road R 37).

Tel: +27 (0) 15 295 2432

This museum invites visitors to take a step back in time and explore a traditional Bakone tribal village as it existed about 250 years ago.

This open air living museum gives visitors the opportunity to gain insight into the background and history of the Bakone people who are a subgroup of the Northern Sotho tribe.

Bakone Malapa literally means Bakone Homestead and the village, set on the original site of an ancient village, and has been superbly Reconstructed in the traditional Northern Sotho way.

Archaeological excavations have been carried out in the area around Bakone Malapa Museum and evidence, including nearby rock paintings, has led researchers to conclude that this area was first occupied by the San tribe quite some time before being occupied by the Bakone people.
 

Church of the Vow

Address: Located in town of Louis Trichardt.

Tel: +27 (0) 15 516 3415

E-Mail: dgumani@webmail.co.za

The church was designed by Gerhard Moerdyk and built in 1926.The church of the convenant is one on the two churches in South Africa that came about as a result of a vow .

On October 16,1898, shortly before the republican attack on the Venda monarch Mphephu,worshippers promised that if the Lord enabled them to make peace with the Venda, a church will be dedicated to His  honour.

Dzata Ruins and Museum of the Dam

Address: On the R523 between Thohoyandou

Tel: +27 (0) 82 465 9303

Site of the the Vhavenda royal dating back ti 1400 AD. The history of the Vinda is depicted and the ruins with their dry- stone walls can be explored.

Eersteling Monuments

Address: 18km from Polokwane on the N1 to Makopane

The site of the country's first gold crushing site and its first gold power plant are marked by monuments.

Eersteling also played a significant part in history, at the siege of Marabastad on 17 March 1881. The Boers brought in two old boats, with obsolete guns, and used handmade ammunition.

The round shot ammunition was handcrafted from beaten iron, beaten iron that came from the Eersteling Mining Company.

Elim Hospital Museum

Address: Capricon, Polokwane

Tel: +27 (0) 15 556 3201

Swiss Missionaries started Elim Hospital in 1899. There is a Museum within the hospital yard that is being renovated so that visitors can view and get a historical understanding of the hospital.

This includes the history of the Swiss Missionaries, Anglo-Boer War and the local Chief, Njhaka-Njhaka, who leased the land to these Missionaries for 100 years.

The Missionaries brought religion to the people of Njhaka-Njhaka and churches and schools were built for the community.   

Source www.openafrica.org                                                      

Ga-Mothapo Rock Art Site

Address: Ga-Mothapo rock art site is located South of Polokwane Central Business District, south west of the main tarred road R71 from Polokwane to Tzaneen,on farm portion Last hoek 1054 LS. The site is situated on granite quartzite sand stone ridge, south western section of Makgokopong village (Mothapo area)

Tel: +27 (0) 15 290 2010

This is an open rock shelter on the hilltop of a small mountain at Ga – Mothapo (Makgokubung Village) with only monochrome paintings.

The site is regarded as the place where SAN rested for few days on their way to the Kalahari. There is also an artificial cave in the Irish House Museum where these kinds of rock paintings are depicted to show the visitors how a rock art site looks like.

Hugh Exton Photographic Museum

Address: Polokwane

Tel: +27 (0) 15 290 2186

The museum is housed in a Duch Revormed church built in Polokwane South Africa, in the 1890's.

The very valuable cultural, history collection, consisting of more than 23 000 photos taken by Hugh Exton are mainly of Polokwane and its people and dates from the early 1890's to about 1945.

While negatives unlock the mysteries of yesteryear, the original (now somewhat delicate and fragile) photographs are preserved in this old church. The exhibitions cover a variety of topics such as, the birth and development of Polokwane, architecture, industries, clothing, trade and famous town residents.

Irish House Museum

Address: Located adjacent to Metropolitan Centre @ CNR. Thabo Mbeki & Market Str.

Tel: +27 (0) 15 290 2182

Internet: www.polokwane.org.za

National Cultural History Museum - It’s a building that used to be the first clothing shop and later declared a monument by the National Monument Council, now South African Heritage Resource Agency (SAHRA).

This cultural history museum hosts a vast collection of various items which are of cultural, scientific and historical
value. At times our exhibition covers all the ethnic groups in the Limpopo province.

Any exhibition done in this historical museum has a theme and a message that it conveys to the visitors.
 

Louis Trichardt Memorial

Address: Located at the Northern side of Polokwane CBD along the National Road to Makhado, at about 700 metres from the junction to South African Breweries.

Tel: +27 (0) 15 516 3415

E-Mail: dgumani@webmail.co.za

The establishment of Pietersburg (Polokwane) stems from the colonial expansion of people of European descent from the Cape during the early 19th century in what is generally known as “Great Trek”.
 

Melted Guns

Address: Polokwane, 0700

Tel: +27 (0) 15 290 2177
Fax: +27 (0) 15 290 2255

At the end of the war against Magoeba in 1893, all the guns that were confiscated were burnt. This gun/metal memorial was found in 1975 when the golf course was built.

Muti wa VhaTsonga Open Air Museum

Address: Litsitele within the Hans Merensky Nature Reserve next to the Eiland Spa

Tel: +27 (0) 15 307 3582

This is a traditional Tsonga homestead, where everyday life is portrayed and where you can see the different styles of the Northern Tsonga over the past 200 years.

The layout of the Open-Air museum includes different types of sleeping huts, grain, cooking huts stores, the ancestral tree ,a sacrificial hut,a goat hut a chicken hut and a cattle kraal.

Polokwane Museum

Tel: +27 (0) 15 290 2183

The Polokwane Museum was built in 1906 by Moschke, a German immigrant and in 1920 he sold the museum to JA Jones. Mr Jones gave the museum the name of 'Irish House'. The building is from the beautiful Late Victorian style and was restored to its original splendour in 1986 when it was declared as a museum.

Schoemansdal Museum

Address: The museum is situated 15kms out of Louis Trichardt on the R522.

Tel: +27 (0) 15 516 2082

The museum commemorates South Africa’s history and accommodates the grave of Voortrekker leader Andries Hendrik Potgieter,it also houses some remains of the town’s original structures such as houses,shops,streets and water furrow systems.

Hendrik Potgieter‘s grave may be found in the Schoemansdal Memorial the memorial was erected in the town in honour of the Voortrekkers.

The Waterberg Museum

Tel: +27 (0) 14 755 4189

The Waterberg Museum situated at the original Melkrivier School houses fascinating information on the cultural history of the area, dating from the first hominids a million years ago, to the first white pioneers and latter-day personalities such as naturalist and poet Eugene Marais who lived in the Waterberg  

Thulamela

Address: In the northern region of what is now the Kruger National Park (Pafuri Gate)

Tel: +27 (0) 13 735 5611

An archaeological site where Africans smelted gold around 1300.

Tsonga Kraal Museum

Address: 725lt Eiland limpopo

Tel: +27 (0) 15 386 8727

The Tsonga Open-Air  Museum represents the building styles and cultural products of the North Tsonga. The North Tsonga is composed of refugee groups from the southern part of Mozambique.

Voortrekker Monument

Address: Located in Tubatse Municipality in the Tswenyane village

Tel: +27 (0) 12 326 6770

An old Historical voortrekker route ( to be developed)

Voortrekker Park

Address: Located within Polokwane CBD at the corner of Thabo Mbeki and Burger Street near the public swimming Pool.

Tel: +27 (0) 15 294 1000

Voortrekker history is commemorated by a symbolic memorial to the 1838 Great Trek.

Vutsila Art Centre

Address: Makulaka Village, Thohoyodou, Makhado


E-Mail: vutsilaar@yahoo.com

Vutsila Art Centre is a school for the arts in Makulaka village, near Makhado in Limpopo.

Vutsila Art Centre it is owned by  Kubayi , who is Inspired by his dreams for the future of traditional craftsmanship, he has developed a school for the arts in Makulaka village, near Makhado in Limpopo.

Named the Vutsila Art Centre (Vutsila means art in Xitsonga and Venda), he teaches young people how to create clay work, wooden sculptures, musical instruments, traditional furniture and bead-work.

Waterberg Rhino Museum

Address: Melkrivier

Tel: +27 (0) 14 755 4428
Fax: +27 (0) 14 755 3504

E-Mail: glynis@wowlimpopo.co.za

This is the first museum devoted entirely to the conservation of the rhinoceros. It highlights the evolutionary history, habitats and landscapes, the rhino wars, illegal trade and use of rhino horn and conservation efforts to preserve rhinos.