Craighall is a suburb of

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

, South Africa and is bordered by

Hyde Park Hyde Park may refer to: Places England * Hyde Park, London, a Royal Park in Central London * Hyde Park, Leeds, an inner-city area of north-west Leeds * Hyde Park, Sheffield, district of Sheffield * Hyde Park, in Hyde, Greater Manchester Austra ...

, Dunkeld and Parkhurst. It sits in between the busy arterial routes of

Jan Smuts Avenue Jan Smuts Avenue is a major street in Johannesburg, South Africa. It begins in Randburg, and passes through important business areas like Rosebank. It passes the Johannesburg Zoo, Zoo Lake and Wits University before becoming Bertha Street, an ...

and

William Nicol highway William is a male given name of Germanic languages, Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norm ...

and is located in Region B of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality.

History

Craighall was established in 1902 by the

Scot The Scots ( sco, Scots Fowk; gd, Albannaich) are an ethnic group and nation native to Scotland. Historically, they emerged in the early Middle Ages from an amalgamation of two Celtic-speaking peoples, the Picts and Gaels, who founded t ...

William Rattray William is a masculine given name of Norman French origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conques ...

, the owner of a large farm, ''Klipfontein'', which at the time was an hour's journey by horse-carriage to the north of the bustling mining town of Johannesburg. He divided the farm into a

residential A residential area is a land used in which housing predominates, as opposed to industrial and commercial areas. Housing may vary significantly between, and through, residential areas. These include single-family housing, multi-family residen ...

development, which he named Craighall after his birthplace in Blairgowrie,

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

, and a recreational development of lakes and parkland, much of which still exists as the open land of Delta Park. Craighall was an attractive, fertile piece of land on a gentle west/north facing slope. The main natural feature of Craighall is the cascading rocky

waterfall A waterfall is a point in a river or stream where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf. Waterfalls can be formed in several wa ...

on the

Braamfontein Spruit The Braamfontein Spruit (from the Afrikaans for "spring of brambles") is the longest stream in Johannesburg, South Africa. It originates in Barnato Park High School, Braamfontein. It is covered and canalised near its source, but once the river run ...

at the north-west corner of the suburb. It flows year-round but becomes a particularly dramatic spectacle during heavy rain-storms. Waterfall Avenue, the original centre-piece avenue of the suburb, was named after it. Craighall was originally planned with erven (stand) sizes at just under an

acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imp ...

(3,850 square metres, known as a "Craighall Acre"), although more than half have since been sub-divided into smaller stand sizes. It remains a spacious, treed residential suburb with abundant bird-life, yet located within 6 minutes drive of

Sandton Sandton is an upscale commercial and residential district north of the city of Johannesburg, South Africa. It forms part of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. The name of the city came from the combination of two of its suburbs, ...

References

Johannesburg Region B {{Johannesburg-stub