A Brief History of Avondale

Wisdom
3 Min Read

By Correspondent

Avondale is a residential suburb in northwest Harare about 3.5 kilometres north of the CBD and west of Mount Pleasant.

It is the earliest suburb established in Harare, having been laid out in 1903.

The Farm

The Avondale farm was purchased from J H Kennedy by Alfred Blackburn in 1903.

In 1910 he subdivided the farm into 25 acre residential plots.

Avondale was declared a village on 15 June 1911 with the new suburbs of Emerald Hill and Kensington being formed within the original farm boundary.

Until 1934, Avondale stretched from the boundary of current Mount Pleasant to its east and west and up to the edge of Marlborough.

It included Avonlea, Ashbrittle, Greencroft, Strathaven, Sentosa, Kensington, Belgravia and Milton park.

The Shona name for the ridge at Avondale was said to be Chikwi (a bench of beaten earth).

Avondale was a dairy farm and was named after Avondale in Ireland the home of the 19th-century Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell.

Up until 1934, Avondale was under its own Village Management Board.

It was a self contained estate with a main gate by the current intersection of Cork road and Milton Avenue right next to Parirenyatwa hospital.

The Suburb

In 1931 its management board voted to be included in the Municipality of Salisbury( Harare).

The vote to join the city was carried by a majority of 13 only after it was agreed residents would get electricity.

Avondale was then incorporated into Harare Municipality in 1934.

Today it is one of Harare’s oldest suburbs, formally laid out in 1903, just over a decade after the city itself.

Avondale School records date back to 1911 making it the oldest primary school in Mashonaland.

Former pupils recounted how they were taken to the western side of the Avondale ridge to see the first plane coming in to land at Belvedere aerodrome in 1920.

The grave of John Upington grave is believed to be the earliest of all the pioneers in the country.

It is in ‘The Garden of Remembrance’ gravesite in the grounds of the Anglican Church of St Mary Magdalene along King George road, opposite the ZRP Police Station.

Another notable fact is that the first official marriage ceremony in colonial Rhodesia occured at Avondale farm in 1894.

The newly weds were the leaseholders of the farm Countess Billie and Count Edward de la Panouse (above).

Today there is even a street name Del La-Panouse Way.

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