If you haven’t walked down Grahamstown’s Z Street on a Sunday morning, you can’t really claim that you’ve seen everything that the City of Saints has to offer.
The one end of Z Street is bordered by the very modest building of the Ethiopian Church of South Africa and the other end is punctuated by Tantyi Community Hall.
If you haven’t walked down Grahamstown’s Z Street on a Sunday morning, you can’t really claim that you’ve seen everything that the City of Saints has to offer.
The one end of Z Street is bordered by the very modest building of the Ethiopian Church of South Africa and the other end is punctuated by Tantyi Community Hall.
Z Street has a haunting silence during the week but on a Sunday morning, it becomes a colourful cacophonyof song, prayer and praise.
Elderly women dressed in various traditional and colourful church uniforms graciously dominate the street which looks more like an awesome modelling ramp.
The women’s beautiful outfits are brighter and smarter than the bling of the township’s church-going
nouveau rich.
But the only accessory that the traditionally dressed folk and the bling crowd have in common is the
leather- bound Bible in their hands.
There is hardly any other street in South Africa that has eight different church buildings that literally neighbour each other.
The close proximity of these churches gives Z Street the kind of attraction that would appeal to anyone coming to Grahamstown in search of the city’s many church spires.
The modestly designed church buildings are in stark contrast to the ornate architecture of some of the churches located in the city centre.
Yet each of these churches has its own way of calling on the gods through song, sermon and praise; and advocating for the kind of tolerance that is so uniquely characteristic of African Christian spirituality.
Not far from Z Street is St Phillips Church in Fingo Village. This 150 year old building stands quite majestically amid the squalor and impoverishment of the township. Its dark red bricks have weathered many political and natural storms.
From the days of the student and political unrests, the shell of an old burnt-out school building still remains sandwiched between the church and the view towards Gunfire Hill on which the 1820 Settlers Monument
stands quite imposingly.
It leaves one wondering if the architect who designed St Phillips Church relished a kind of crude sense of humour about letting the echo from the church resonate against the slopes of Gunfire Hill.
There are many buildings in Grahamstown that are protected with heritage status but there is a hardly any
building in Grahamstown’s black community that has been conferred with this status.
If the 150 year old St Phillips Church in Fingo Village was located in any other city it would definitely have been declared a national treasure that is worthy of preservation.
Both St Phillips Church and its sister diocese, the iconic 160-year-old Cathedral of St Michael and St George in the city centre, deserve to be protected by heritage status.
The failure to successfully register these two buildings reflects dismally on the city’s commitment to contribute to the country’s register of national treasures.
It reflects even more dismally on the city’s aesthetics pundits who invest more energy into campaigning against the new KFC rather than ploughing their energy into a campaign that will save the city’s two most historical and iconic church buildings.
In other parts of the country, apart from those who go to pray in churches that have been conferred with heritage status, these monuments attract hordes of visitors who contribute to the city’s tourism economy.
Hundreds of tourists visit the Regina Mundi Church in Soweto on a daily basis. The Grey Street Mosque in Durban, the Melrose Temple in Johannesburg and the Buddhist Temple in Bronkhorspruit also have large numbers of tourists who visit it daily.
Similarly, tours to Grahamstown’s historical township church sites could offer several job creating opportunities that are waiting in the wings.
Each year during the National Arts Festival, several visitors attend the inspiring programme that is presented by the organisers of Spirit- best.
This well-planned celebration of the Christian faith brings many visitors who walk through the City of Saints to explore its many church buildings.
Many of these tourists would be keen to embark on a tour which would offer them an enriching and inspiring experience that would stretch from the Cathedral in the city centre, wind past the several churches in Z Street and culminate with a fascinatingly different view of Grahamstown from the steps leading to the entrance of St Phillips Church in Fingo Village.
Township tourism with its resultant economic growth for entrepreneurs can only be enhanced if heritage institutions in the township are accorded the kind of status that will be able to draw potential tourists.
It is long overdue for St Phillips Church – and for the Cathedral of St Michael and St George – to be given this status. Z Street, St Phillips Church and the Cathedral of St Michael and St George are much better places on which this city needs to be sharpening its focus when engaging around issues of aesthetics and heritage preservation!
Ismail Mahomed is the
Director of the National Arts Festival. He writes in his personal capacity.
