The Barkly West Museum was established in 2000 in the old Toll House

Toll house

A tollhouse or toll house is a building with accommodation for a toll collector, beside a tollgate on a toll road or canal. Many tollhouses were built by turnpike trusts in England, Wales and Scotland during the 18th and early 19th centuries...

 beside the Barkly Bridge which crosses the Vaal River

Vaal River

The Vaal River is the largest tributary of the Orange River in South Africa. The river has its source in the Drakensberg mountains in Mpumalanga, east of Johannesburg and about 30 km north of Ermelo and only about 240 km from the Indian Ocean. It then flows westwards to its conjunction...

 at Barkly West in the Northern Cape

Northern Cape

The Northern Cape is the largest and most sparsely populated province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up. Its capital is Kimberley. It includes the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park, part of an international park shared with Botswana...

, South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

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Establishment

The museum was based on the collection mainly of minerals and archaeological finds gathered in the earlier twentieth century by Mining Commissioner Gideon Retief, which was once housed under imperfect conditions as the "Mining Commissioner's Museum" in the town. Following years of neglect, the toll house was restored and converted into a museum opened in Heritage Month, 2000.

Displays

The displays comprise exhibition cabinets on local geology

Geology

Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...

, archaeology

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

 and history

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

 and panels created by Kimberley's McGregor Museum

McGregor Museum

The McGregor Museum in Kimberley, South Africa, originally known as the Alexander McGregor Memorial Museum, is a province-aided museum established in 1907.- Overview :...

, on precolonial history, the alluvial diamond diggings and the origins and social history

Social history

Social history, often called the new social history, is a branch of History that includes history of ordinary people and their strategies of coping with life. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in history departments...

 of the town. The displays touch on mid-twentieth-century forced removals in Barkly West that were a consequence of the Group Areas Act

Group Areas Act

The Group Areas Act of 1950 was an act of parliament created under the apartheid government of South Africa on 27th April 1950. The act assigned racial groups to different residential and business sections in urban areas in a system of urban apartheid...

 under Apartheid.

A section of the display is about the Canteen Kopje skull, a cast of which is exhibited. A stone tablet bearing the names of noteworthy visitors to the nearby Canteen Kopje

Canteen Kopje

Canteen Kopje is a spectacularly rich Earlier Stone Age situated outside Barkly West in the Northern Cape, South Africa. It is a Provincial Heritage Site and has an open air trail including information boards...

 site and the Mining Commissioner's Museum in the 1940s includes the signature of the Abbé Henri Breuil

Henri Breuil

Henri Édouard Prosper Breuil , often referred to as Abbé Breuil, was a French Catholic priest, archaeologist, anthropologist, ethnologist and geologist...

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Photographs showing the Barkly Bridge and Vaal River in flood overlook the river and bridge.

The museum has undergone a revamp in 2009-2010.

The 125th anniversary of the opening of the "Vaal River Bridge, West Barkly" - as it was originally named - was celebrated here on June 26 2010, with readings from the Diamond Fields Advertiser

Diamond Fields Advertiser

The Diamond Fields Advertiser is a daily newspaper published in Kimberley, South Africa, founded on 23 March 1878.-The early days:The earliest paper on the Diamond Fields was a weekly called the Diamond Field , published from 15 October 1870 at Pniel. It moved the following year first to Du Toit's...

, William Guybon Atherstone

William Guybon Atherstone

William Guybon Atherstone medical practitioner, naturalist and geologist, one of the pioneers of South African geology and a member of the Cape Parliament....

, Emil Holub

Emil Holub

Emil Holub was a Czech physician, explorer, cartographer, and ethnographer in Africa. In a 2005 poll, he was voted #90 of the 100 greatest Czechs.-Early life:...

, Sol Plaatje

Sol Plaatje

Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje was a South African intellectual, journalist, linguist, politician, translator, and writer. The Sol Plaatje Local Municipality, which includes the city of Kimberley, was named after him.-Early life:...

 and Dan Jacobson

Dan Jacobson

Dan Jacobson is a novelist, short story writer, critic and essayist. He has lived in Great Britain for most of his adult life, and for many years held a professorship in the English Department at University College London...

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External links

• Roger Webster interviews Ashley Bristow on the Barkly West Museum