The paint on St Mary’s Church is chipped and flaking. The tiny Anglican church has been standing since 1852 and is starting to look its age. The fence around the church and surrounding overgrown hedges is rusted and bent. A pair of beggars pack cardboard and blankets into a shopping trolley, and rattle across the grass.
To the South is the Rhenish mission church, completed in 1823 and originally built as a school for coloured slave children. To the right of the church stand two proud brass bells, heard chiming loud on Sunday mornings.
To the North West is the Kruithuis, specially built to store gunpowder. The old cannons outside the building today still bear the V.O.C. mark of the Dutch East India Company.
At the centre of these pillars of history lies a drying patch of grass, littered with abandoned cigarette butts and chicken bones.
Flanked by heritage sites and monuments of historical and cultural significance, Die Braak itself these days looks like an afterthought.
Vendors on the eastern side of the square dutifully set up their stalls every morning at 7 o’clock. Curios, paintings, African-print cloth and wooden statuettes are carefully laid out, displayed in the hopes that a tour group may wander across Die Braak. The market is largely ignored by locals.
In days gone by Die Braak was considered the town square or village green, a space of great pride.
No more. A walk across Die Braak today is a minefield of used needles and dead birds; broken glass and forgotten shoes.
Since its heyday, Die Braak has deteriorated considerably. Site of the occasional informal soccer match, Die Braak no longer hosts community events. At lunchtime the space is full of people soaking up sun or catching a few minutes of sleep during their break. By three o’clock remnants of the day’s lunch are left lying on the yellowed grass.
“I come here after I finish with morning work, then I go look for some work in the afternoon. Sometimes I just stay here and sleep until it’s time to catch the bus home,” says Samuel Mgiqwa, an informal labourer who commutes from Kayamandi every day.
By the time evening sets in, the scene has changed.
Author Joy Colliers in 1959 wrote: “I defy anyone to produce a prettier sight in the Southern Hemisphere than these buildings (the Rhenish church and the Kruithuis) at sunset when the whole Braak fills with light”.
The evening light has not changed, but these days the scene is different. Evenings on Die Braak see people cutting across the grass, on their way to the taxi rank, to the bus stop, to Checkers or elsewhere. No one lingers and no one looks up. The vendors pack up before shadow starts to appear on Papegaaiberg, leaving rusted trailers and wheel-less vans full of crafted goods in the parking lot overnight.
It is hard to imagine a time when the Braak could have been considered the prettiest site in the Southern Hemisphere.
During the December festive season, Die Braak is lit-up. Strings of colourful globes cast the square in warm light during the evenings, but by day the mundanity and the neglect return. For the remaining 11 months of the year, the dull Christmas tree at the centre of the square stands unnoticed and unused.
Die Braak at sunset. Many of the town’s homeless people spend their evenings sleeping on the grass. They rely on charities that sometimes visit Die Braak in the evenings to feed people in need. PHOTO: Lauren Dold
Die Braak, once held far more colonial names, including “the Queen’s Square” and “the King’s Square,” depending on the reigning monarch of the time.
Up until the 1950’s it was tradition for the old cannons outside the Kruithuis to be rolled on to Die Braak and fire a twenty-one-gun salute in honour of the King’s birthday. On one occasion a cannon exploded and the tradition was put to a stop.
These days, Die Braak after dark is a place best avoided.
The manager at the Stellenbosch Information Centre just off Die Braak say that they no longer direct tourists there. “At the moment there is construction going on which isn’t nice to look at so we don’t advise that tourists go there. Generally we direct tourists away from that area in the evenings”.
The Stellenbosch Heritage Foundation together with a team of international researchers are in the process of evaluating the importance and use of the space. There have been suggestions regarding alternative landscaping of Die Braak and surrounding areas, which could be a first step in restoring the area to its former local significance.