Postcard ZA-35909

Pietermaritzburg's City Hall, which claims to be the largest brick building in the southern hemisphere, lies in the middle of the Pietermaritzburg city centre. The building is a national monument and is a beautiful piece of Victorian architecture, with its 47m high bell tower. Constructed in 1893, the building was ravaged by fire in 1895, with reconstruction taking place some six years later.

Just outside the Pietermaritzburg City Hall stands a 5.5kg naval gun known as the One O’Clock Gun, for the obvious reason that it used to fire every day at exactly one o’clock, with the exception of Sundays. The gun’s history is rich, starting with its journey during the 1840s on the HMS Fawn. The ship carried out the worthy cause of capturing slave ships and releasing their human cargo, ultimately putting an end to the slave trade.