Mossel Bay | Historical Tour | Episode 8 - From Harbour to Jail: Mossel Bay’s Untold History

Описание: Episode 8 – Mossel Bay’s Darker Histories, Timekeeping & Survival

In this episode of the Mossel Bay Historical Walking Tour, we uncover some of the town’s most fascinating — and sobering — stories, many of which still sit quietly within buildings people pass every day without noticing.

We begin at the former Mossel Bay Boating Company, the organization that once controlled everything that happened in the harbour. Here, a tower clock didn’t tell the time — it counted seconds, used to calculate how long ships took to load and unload, and ultimately how much they paid to dock. At a time when Mossel Bay had no reliable way to tell time, a ringing bell could mean anything from a meeting… to a fire.

Around the corner, we discover 120-year-old hand-painted stained-glass windows, still in place today — a hidden detail even many locals don’t know exists.

The walk then moves to the first jail of Mossel Bay, built in 1861 when this area was still outside of town. With an incredibly low crime rate, one of its two cells was often unused — and eventually doubled as an emergency operating theatre. Later, the building served as a military hospital during the Anglo-Boer War and an isolation hospital during the Spanish Flu pandemic.

This episode also explores how Mossel Bay faced epidemics long before modern medicine, from smallpox isolation huts and early vaccine distribution, to paying residents to bring in rats during the bubonic plague outbreak.

The episode ends with one of the darkest moments in Mossel Bay’s history, the only execution ever carried out in the town, following the murder of a young girl in 1887. It’s a powerful reminder of how close-knit the community was, and how deeply events like this affected the town.

This walk reveals a side of Mossel Bay that is rarely spoken about - where survival, justice, and resilience shaped the community we see today.

📍 Location: Mossel Bay, Garden Route, Western Cape, South Africa
🚶 Filmed as part of the Mossel Bay Historical Walking Tour by Hello Adventure

Special thanks to Leon van der Walt for presenting this episode and for originally starting the Mossel Bay Ghost Walk Tour, helping to preserve and share these important local stories.


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