A historic town nestled in the Irish Midlands pops up when you search ‘Athlone’ online. Add ‘Cape Town’ and an entirely different gallery emerges – images of a power station coated in industrial grime, small houses along the contour of the N2, a rusting railway line and a football stadium. This is the Athlone set apart for so-called Coloureds during the Apartheid era, forming part of the famed Cape Flats.

Landscape of sand and stillness

In the 1800s, this land was inhabited by a handful of farmers, surviving only by coaxing veg from pockets of poor sandy soil between the dunes. There was no infrastructure. Drinking water was collected in tanks from the roofs. With no electricity, oil lamps were used. Antelope roamed between the wattle thickets.

English naturalist William John Burchell noted, in 1811, that the area’s deep sand made travel by wagon extremely difficult. The few indigenous shrubs and trees that stabilised the sand were cut down in dire need of firewood.

Architecture of social control

In 1865, a street grid was laid out near a military encampment on the Cape Flats, marking the early phases of infrastructure. Like many places, Athlone’s development is tied to the railway, connecting it to Crawford and Lansdowne.

Speculative building only started in 1901. Wood-and-iron homes were allowed here, whereas in more central areas like Mowbray, Claremont and Rondebosch, new external walls had to be brick or stone (these building codes were used to keep poorer residents and independent builders out).

Homes were built on unreliable foundations – often paraffin cans filled with concrete or bricks with no mortar. Surprisingly, some of these have stood the test of time, such as on Lawrence Road. 

The neighbourhood was called West London. It was one of the first areas where the municipality implemented its post-WW1 housing scheme. Facing a chronic shortage of homes, authorities aimed to clear ‘slums’ in central neighbourhoods, while also attempting to prevent racial mixing.

In 1927, 146 more wood-and-iron houses were built along with 115 concrete cottages. Loans or financing were provided for the construction in the so-called Coloured communities in other areas of the Flats (and brick cottages designated for whites in Cape Town).

West London changed its name to Athlone in the early 1930s. It was customary to name places and roads after British Governors, Generals and Commanders-in-Chief of the Union of South Africa, regardless of the success of their tenure. But reports say Alexander Cambridge, the Earl of Athlone, did an admirable job during his time here from 1924 – 1931. (He and his wife learnt Afrikaans before coming). Even today, commentators laud his integrity and royal blood  –  his sister was Queen Mary, and he was a great-grandson of King George III.

Displacement – the legacy of District Six

In July 1957, Athlone was officially pronounced a ‘Coloured’ area by Apartheid’s Group Areas Act of 1950 – along with Bishop Lavis, Bonteheuwel, Elsies River, Matroosfontein and Duinefontein on the Cape Flats.

As early as 1912, a sizeable isiXhosa black African community was established in West London. They were forcibly removed in the 1950s as part of the same discriminatory policies.

Athlone became the residence of as many as 60 000 people from District Six, in central Cape Town. District Six was declared a whites only area on February 11, 1966 – at the heartbreaking expense of multi-generational families and a vibrant community.

Resistance and resilience – tragedies remembered

Under the Apartheid regime, the residential area around Alexander Sinton High School in Athlone was a known site for anti-apartheid activism. On 15 October 1985, someone in the crowd threw a rock at a passing South African Railways truck (at the time, state-owned). Little did they realise the tragedy that would follow…

Unbeknownst to the protestors, security police were hiding inside crates on the back of the truck. Suddenly emerging with rifles and with no warning, they opened fire on the crowd. Michael Miranda (11), Shaun Magmoed (15) and Jonathan Claasen (21) were killed. 15 others were injured, including two younger children.

13 of the murderers accused were acquitted, despite an inquest, appeal and unambiguous footage of the shooting (I can’t help feeling ill writing this).  The cameraman who caught the scene, got the film out of the country. An international outrage erupted.

“That was our weapon – stones. They had bullets; they had lethal ammunition,” said Shirley Gunn, anti-apartheid activist and uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) veteran.

Shirley Gunn was key to the Trojan Horse Memorial on Thornton Road, the scene of the tragedy. It was paid for by the City and unveiled on 24 September 2005 (Heritage Day). The memorial is weathered and unloved. I have been told it is relatively high up the City’s list of ”memorial repairs”.

On 23 July 1989, two MK operatives, Robbie Waterwitch (20) and Coline Williams (22), died when the limpet mine (bomb) they were carrying, detonated prematurely.

Outside Athlone magistrates’ court (the site of the explosion), their bronze monument was stolen and has been replaced by one made of a cheaper material.

Both Robbie and Coline were honoured with the Order of Mendi for Bravery by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2024.

There is an easy to miss memorial on the Athlone side of Crawford, at Kromboom Park. There is a simple list of clergy on the park wall, marking action in March 1985.

7764 –  cafes and communities thrive

Locals from Athlone and Crawford, call it 7764 – the area postcode. 7764 was used in a song by pop-star Jimmy Nevis. He is proud he is Athlone born (1992) and bred.

‘My community was home to countless different cultures and religions. That meant I got to dig into different locally-made dishes that the neighbours would share with our family during celebrations like Diwali, Christmas, and Eid…growing up and going to a school outside Athlone, I was aware that most of the people from my school had never been in the area. For example, taking a friend from school into my neighbourhood once was like taking her through a museum. She had never seen the Cape Flats before.’

This quote echoes Tony Hartman’s experience in the 1980s. He is the Culture Connect Athlone guide.

I live ten minutes’ drive from Athlone in Rosebank. My initial visits were for food. It has one of the largest butcheries I’ve been too –  Wembley Meat Market. I’ve had some very tasty traditional Indian and Cape Malay lunches there. Many visit for the Gatsby sandwiches, including Phil in the Netflix travel series, Somebody Feed Phil. The sandwich was, after all, invented in Athlone.

The pulse of Athlone remains strong. 

Want to visit?

Kate Crane Briggs

kate@cultureconnectsa.com

Images: Hasan and Husain Essops’ Athlone Superette, 2014. The rest are by Erin Goodman, the photographer for Anthony’s tour for Jive soft drinks, 2024: Robbie Waterwitch and Coline Williams monument detail | Tony Hartman | Fisheries where the Gatsby sandwich was born| Shaheen Soni of Soni Art studio and gallery

Main sources: The Cape Town Book by Nechama Brodie, 2015 | Walking Cape Town by John Muir, 2013 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlone,_Cape_Town | https://capechamber.co.za/places/athlone-and-cape-flats-chapter | https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/athlone-or-cape-flats-cape-town

Suggested reading: Voices from the Underground: 18 life stories from Umkhonto we Sizwe’s Ashley Kriel Detachment, edited by Shirley Gunn and Shanil Haricharan, published by Penguin Random House, 2019