The Village Green — also called the Market Square — is the historic heart of Stanford. It is graded IIIA, and it is one of South Africa's few remaining undeveloped market squares. Caring for it has been a focus of the Stanford Village Plan (2014) and of the Stanford Revitalisation Plan, which the municipality adopted into its Integrated Development Plan in 2016.
The idea
As early as 1996, Stanford resident and architect Michael Sutton proposed opening the vista from Queen Victoria Street to the Village Green, including moving the post boxes. Stanford's post office boxes have since been moved off the Market Square to behind the municipal offices, which fulfils that part of his proposal.
In August 2001 he took the idea further in a set of sketches. One sheet shows a photograph labelled "Vista 'C' Today", a coloured drawing of the same view with a more formal gabled building facing the green, and a plan of the existing Oulap Hall, a new plastered façade, paving, a porch, gates, existing trees, the road and the water furrow.
A later plan of the whole square, shown above, is labelled Stanford Market Square and shows Shortmarket, Longmarket, Morton and Queen Victoria Streets. Three vistas are marked from a "spectator" point in the centre: Vista A toward Queen Victoria Street, Vista B toward Morton Street, and Vista C toward Shortmarket Street and Okkie Smuts Primary School across the green.
Sutton, one of South Africa's renowned architects, died in Greece about two years ago, aged 94.
The Stanford Revitalisation Plan
The municipality adopted the Stanford Revitalisation Plan into its Integrated Development Plan in 2016. These drawings show the proposed Central Precinct around the Village Green. Open the plan (PDF).
The roads around the green
By September 2019, Stanford Conservation had submitted a final proposal to the municipality on the road surface, traffic flow and parking for the two street sections beside the green — Longmarket and Shortmarket. Dust on those streets had been a long-standing problem.
The two sections are not proclaimed roads. They form part of one erf, which includes the Village Green, and they have Heritage 3A status, so they need not follow strict municipal road specifications. The proposal was to narrow the roads, pave them with an aggregate brownish paver, and add parking for businesses in the village centre:
- Longmarket Street: two-way traffic, with parallel parking on the village green side.
- Shortmarket Street: one-way from Queen Victoria Street to Morton Street, with diagonal parking on the village green side, so that motorists who cannot park in the main road can turn in and find a bay.
Mayoral funding (external income, not from rates) had become available, with work hoped to start in 2020.
The paving beside the Village Green is now complete, and the Square hosts the Saturday morning market.
Moving the post boxes
Stanford's post office boxes have been moved off the Market Square to behind the municipal offices.
Who is involved
The Planning Group and Stanford Conservation, working with Overstrand Municipality.
Interested in learning more about the Market Square? Email us.
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