After living in the brash new town of Johannesburg for only three years (in Noord Street), Lionel and Florence Phillips had had enough of the ceaseless dust and noise of  the town. Lionel had recently been elected President of the Chamber of Mines and this would mean entertaining the great and glamorous of the day: [...]

The suburb of Parktown was laid out in 1893 by the Braamfontein Estate Company. It fell beyond the existing city limits and was considered to be out, “in the country” and therefore desirable as a place to live for Johannesburg’s new mining magnates, the Randlords.  It was administered as a private estate until 1904 and [...]