TOPIC:

Due to the mistaken belief that the British Officers’ P.O.W. Camp was at Waterval, this facility has, until now, been covered in the Waterval thread.

However, after a bit of digging, it has become apparent that the officers’ quarters were not at Waterval, but instead on the northern outskirts of Pretoria, some twelve miles to the south.

For more on this see: Waterval.

As the officers’ camp was quite separate from the rank-and-file establishment at Waterval, it seems a good idea to start a new topic devoted to the “Birdcage”, as the camp came to be known by British detainees.







The distinctive skyline in van Hoepen’s image (see below) helped ascertain that the camp was not at Waterval, a flat featureless place. Google Street View suggested an approximate location on the northern edge of 1900 Pretoria, the hill in the background seemingly resembling Meintjes Kop, the current site of the 1913 Union Buildings. Using the 3D feature in Google Earth, I was able to narrow the location down to an area just to the north of the Aapjes River, in the shadow of the east-west Dasport Range. This district is now occupied by the National Zoological Gardens, and, searching their website I was amazed to find a photograph taken from almost exactly the same spot as van Hoepen’s. By transposing the field of view shown in the latter image onto current mapping, I have now been able to locate the site of the camp with some accuracy.

The good news is that the area has not been built over; the bad news is that if you intend to visit, you run the danger of being charged by a white rhino.


































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Thanks Neville! This is most interesting and enlightening!

Excellent detective work Neville. Thank you for sharing this very interesting and informative information.

The perfectionist and surveyor in me (my old job in archaeology) wasn't entirely happy with the position and size of the enclosure, so I took another look at it.

It turns out that van Hoepen's photograph was taken a little over 100 metres to the west of the cable car terminus, meaning that the west end of the camp is shown too far to the east in my original drawings. It also transpires that the compound is considerably more foreshortened in the 1900 image than I had thought.

So here are the updated plans. The additional Pretoria street map was surveyed in 1929. Note that the early maps show the lower slopes of the Daspoort Range extending too far south.

Although Paul Kruger / Market Street doesn't appear on Jeppe's map, I imagine it must have existed as a track, giving access to the "Birdcage".






























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Below a (slightly cropped and contrast enhanced) photograph of Boers guarding British POW’s. This image was reproduced in Captain Mahan’s book “The South African War” (page 202) with the caption “Boers Guarding British Prisoners at Waterfal [sic]”

Two more photographs of the "Bird Cage" or "Mud Hall", the latter showing the interior shortly after the officers had vacated.





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