Alexander McGregor Memorial Museum Building
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The original museum building in Chapel Street was donated to the people of Kimberley by Mrs Margaret McGregor in 1907, in memory of her late husband, Alexander McGregor, a diamond pioneer and mayor of Kimberley in 1886. Designed by Fergus Carstairs Rogers, this attractive brick building with its intricate façade conforms closely to British norms for public buildings during the Victorian and Edwardian eras.
With its neighbours, the Methodist Church and Manse, it forms one of the very few remaining urban groupings from Kimberley's past. Achille Bocciarelli, an Italian sculptor and owner of local brickworks, sculpted the two reclining female figures on the pediment. |
The Alexander McGregor Memorial Museum in Chapel Street
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By the late 1960s shortage of space at the museum building on Chapel Street was a real problem. Plans for a new museum building were already completed when the Kimberley Sanatorium, a historical Kimberley building on Atlas Street, became available for such a purpose.
