Avondale, Harare: A historical Background

The following article was initially published in Hello Harare Magazine to map the city of Harare according to its communities, the background of those communities and business, social and economic guide of the communities both individually and as a collective.

If ever there were awards for a co

mmunity or a suburb achieving as many firsts as possible in any endeavor, Avondale would dominate the top podium by the widest margin possible. From the layout of the community, the beauty, the appeal to as many Harareans as possible, to having the first grave of the pioneers, the first school in all of Mashonaland, the first private hospital, to providing the Salisbury municipality with its first fresh milk supply and even becoming the first self contained estate detached from the main city municipality, Avondale comes across to any enthusiast as that blessed in the world of suburbs whose community was conceived on pride and high end standards.

Ok so picture this, real back to the 1890s and place yourself on current Avondale shopping area. Now back then Avondale was a self contained estate registered initially under a catholic named Edward O’Connell Farrell in 1890 by the Register of land Grants. Avondale farm number 419 Title was then granted on 29 April to Augustine Steward who had bought it from Farrell for a hundred pounds in October 1891. On the 22nd of April 1893 a James Hutchinson Kennedy bought it for 250 pounds and lent it to a Frenchman Count de la Panouse in 1894. Another Englishman then bought it by the name of A L Blackburn and in 1903 he subdivided it into plots with the first plot being bought within a month on top of Emerald Hill. Ok so Emerald Hill for most of us modern folk is just outside Avondale, but back then until 1934, Avondale stretched from the boundary of current Mount Pleasant to its east and west and up to the edge of Marlborough consuming Avonlea, Ashbrittle, Greencroft, Strathaven, Sentosa, Kensington, Belgravia and Milton park.

Avondale as a name came from an estate in Ireland owned by a Parnell where Edward Farrell once worked as an estate manager. This Irish Avondale estate was situated on the banks of Avondin River in the county of Wicklow, a river once celebrated by poet Thomas Moore in his piece entitled “Meeting of the waters.” Up until 1934, Avondale was under its own Village Management Board and was a self contained estate with a main gate by the current intersection of Cork road and Milton Avenue right next to Parirenyatwa hospital. Its management board voted to be included in the Municipality of Salisbury in 1931 and for the next three years until it was officially incorporated into Salisbury Municipality, the latter built wider roads, planted trees and put street lighting and generally improving the landscape. Thus one in the modern day will discover that Avondale has the most picturesque scenery adopted from the colonial era to the current times.

As an estate that reared dairy and was involved in land agricultural activities, Count Panouse’ dairy herd provided Salisbury’s first supply of fresh milk. In 1890 a certain John Upington as he rode his horse accidentally discharged his rifle which hit him on his shoulder and he died a few days later in Edward Farrell’s house on the 27th of December. His grave is believed to be the first of all pioneers in the country. It is on ‘The Garden of Remembrance’ graveside on the grounds of the St Mary Magdalene Catholic Church along King George road. The Church was built in 1910 at about 300 pounds and it was consecrated in September of 1927 after the St Mary Magdalene Parish Church of London. The current Avondale primary school was opened by Mabel Ruth Low starting with about 15 students. Its records date back to 1911 and it started by using the church premises until the school was built in 1915. The first private hospital St Annes Hospital was opened on the 19th of November in 1937 after the initiative of three catholic nuns, Mother Luigi, Sister Tarcisins and Sister Peter who had moved to then Rhodesia from Durban.