READ: Uproar over Bunny Park — public jumps in with ideas to save park
According to information supplied by Glynis Cox Millett-Clay (founder of the Benoni – Now and Then Facebook group), the then Benoni Town Council decided to develop the piece of land which the park occupies, in the mid 1960s.
The head of the parks department at the time, the late Teun Dubbeld, was instructed to create a recreational park for Benoni residents.
He contacted Laurens “Loek” van Riet (now deceased), the senior architectural assistant of the town engineer’s department to assist with the structural developments and ideas.
And so the Bunny Park came into being.
Did you know?
- The walk-in aviary is based on the one van Riet saw at the Wassenaar Zoo, near “The Hague”, during a visit to the Netherlands.
- The design of the two toilet blocks was inspired by buildings of the Flintstone comic strips, using natural local rocks from the old railway cutting between Rynfield and Morehill Extension Two.
- The park covers an area of approximately 19 hectares.
- The aviary was once stocked with more than 50 different types of exotic birds, most of which have been stolen.
- The mining headgear displayed at the entrance to the park once worked at the New Modder Mine which ceased operation in 1952.
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