Weapons cache halts building
Daily Dispatch
East London, South Africa
2010/01/26
WORK on a multi-million rand construction project at Lovedale Further Education and Training College in King William’s Town has not progressed since an arms cache was found at the site last year.
The R1.2 million three-phased classroom development was stopped in November after workers digging foundations came across a massive cache of Anglo-Boer War weapons.
Experts believed the find, which consisted of rifle barrels, bayonets, swords and burnt wooden rifle butts, was buried on the site by the British army after the war ended in 1902.
They said the college is situated on the site of the old Military Reserve, which traces its origins to 1847 when Sir Harry Smith, Governor of the Cape Colony, established King William’s Town as the administrative and military capital of British Kaffraria.
They said the weapons were buried by a British regiment after they abandoned the Military Reserve in 1913.
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