Chapter four · From 1926
The six pillars on Breda Street
A double-storey building with six Roman pillars, and the campus that anchored a community.
The Institute's first home was a double-storey building on Breda Street, its facade carried on six Roman pillars. For generations of Paarl families that frontage was the physical fact of the promise made in 1926: a place of their own, in their own part of town.
The building housed schooling and, in time, teacher training. In 1953 the functions were separated: Noorder-Paarl High School took the schooling, and the Athlone Training College continued to train teachers.
No photograph of the original building has yet been found in a public collection. This is one of the gaps the centenary archive exists to close — if a photograph of the pillars survives in a family album, a church record or a school magazine, the Trust would like a copy.
Sources for this chapter
- Athlone Institute celebrated founding in 1926 at AGM, Paarl Post, 29 November 2024 Read the source
- AtoM@UCT archival catalogue — "Athlone" search, University of Cape Town Libraries, Special Collections Read the source· to be verified by the Trust