The lush Mushroom Farm Park that sits among the concrete buildings in the centre of the Sandton Central Business District belies the incredible history of an old Sandton farm.
According to the Heritage Portal, Dr Charles Kark, a gynaecologist, built a sprawling house on 103 Katherine Street in 1944. Kark and his wife Thelma used the large piece of land to grow roses and asparagus. He retired as a gynaecologist in 1951 and just prior to that he had begun to investigate the possibility of farming mushrooms.
Once he had retired, he decided he needed a challenge and decided to take mushroom farming seriously.
In the ’50s and ’60s the mushroom farm thrived and the park’s current name is a tribute to this success. Kark named his mushroom farming and canning business Silver Stream, after the small stream that still runs through the property.
Silver Stream prospered in the early 1960s, and in 1967 Kark sold the operation to Tiger Oats. In an article published by The Star newspaper in 1989, just before Kark turned 95, he shared some of his experiences.
He said, “It was when I was in my early seventies when I retired from practising medicine, that I decided I wanted to do something different, something challenging. Which is why I chose mushrooms. They were difficult to grow.
Something easy is not stimulating. At that time there were no books on mushroom growing, it required a lot of endeavour.”
After his illustrious career as a mushroom farmer came to end, Kark decided that he needed to take on another career. At the age of 80, Kark began his third career as a filmmaker. “I refuse to opt out of life. I refuse to retire. You only retire when you become incapacitated or dead. I am neither of those.”
Charles Kark died in 1991, aged 97. Kark’s goal to take on a new challenge is now immortalised in the name of the park.
