MyPE

Community Business Directory, Event Listings, News and Views from Gqeberha, Nelson Mandela Bay

Zwartkops Mineral Baths – Editors Pic

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This image is from the MyPE Editor’s Flickr Account – offering some topical daily images from a phone smarter than Alan, occasional images from a DSLR and scanned images of Port Elizabeth as he wanders around the Bay pretending to know a lot and sometimes succeeding in making a complete hash of it!

Zwartkops Mineral Baths

awstratonpic
Image by awstraton

The Zwartkops Mineral Baths in the early days.
Not many people are aware that off of the Grahamstown Road towards Swartkops in the region of Algorax, the Fish water Flats and Railway Depot a luxury spa (sanatorium) existed between the years 1914 and 1964 until it was sold to developers.

The mineral spring was discovered in 1906 by a private syndicate that was boring for oil and, at a depth of 3 600 feet struck water that rose under pressure to several feet above the surface and a quarter of million gallons of water at a temperature of around 55 degrees Celsius continued to flow until it was capped by the Department of Water Affairs in 1969.

On analysis, it was found that the spring water was heavy in healthful minerals which led to the building in 1914, by the Algoa Mining Company, of a fully equipped spa and sanatorium. The building contained 40 bedrooms, 16 bathrooms, a dining room, drawing room, billiard room – and a cinema. In 1916, the spa was bought by the Pearson family of Port Elizabeth.

In 1936 a magnificent new spa was built. The equivalent of a five-star hotel, it included a magnificent piece of architecture named Spring Hall. A fountain set in green marble was built over the spring head – water poured out through metal jets into a pool below.

After the Second World War, the Swartkops spa went out of vogue. Antibiotics had been invented and people lost belief in natural cures.

In 1984, this spa building, which was then used by a timber merchant, was demolished.

Read more: mype.co.za/new/the-remarkable-zwartkops-mineral-baths-san…
The area today: goo.gl/maps/bvxrTpVFxqE2

This image is randomly selected from an ever growing repository of publicly available images taken in and around Port Elizabeth.

Many more Port Elizabeth images here.

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This author is a 'catch-all' for occasional articles and letters written to MyPE. The Author of each article can be found in the signature at the bottom of each individual article.