News from McGregor Museum Kimberley:

On 6 April 2021 we posted:

Unfortunate to see Barkly West's museum abandoned and boarded-up today. We found some of the surviving display cases at the Library in town, with remains of information panels stacked in a corner. The break-ins and vandalism make for a devastating onslaught on the Northern Cape's tourism prospects and on the role that museums could fulfil for local people.

In March 2025, we find the museum now utterly destroyed - virtually nothing but the walls now stand.

The McGregor Museum created the museum in 1999 in collaboration with the Barkly community and the local Heritage and Tourism Committee under chairmanship of Mayor Majiedt, and it became a key site (together with Cateen Kopje) along the archaeological route we were championing. The building is a provincial heritage site (1885). Our parent Department of Sport, Arts and Culture declined to bring it under their wing. Hence it remained a responsibility of a wholly underresourced local authority. (Incidentally, the displays at Canteen Kopje, refurbished in 2016, were also stolen a few weeks ago).