Before the picnics: the other life of Hillside Dams

Say “Hillside Dams” to someone who knows Bulawayo, and the first thing that comes to mind may be a person.

Someone who took you there. Someone you walked beside. Perhaps a family outing, a picnic, or an afternoon whose small details have stayed with you long after you forgot the occasion.

Your memory might be of the rocks or the birds, the water or the paths. It might simply be of having somewhere to go without having to leave Bulawayo very far behind.

But the dams had another job before they became the setting for those memories. They were built to supply the town with water.

Even that was only one chapter in the life of this landscape.

In the nineteenth century, the area known as Matsheumhlope—White Stones—held one of King Lobengula’s outlying settlements. Historical accounts describe it as a place where he could withdraw from the demands of life at koBulawayo and receive trusted visitors. Long before anyone laid a pipe towards town, this was already a place people knew and used.¹

By 1895, a very different undertaking was taking shape.

The British South Africa Company granted William Napier, Percy Vipon Weir and Charles Jefferson Clark a concession to supply water and electricity. They sold it to Willoughby’s Consolidated, which established the London-registered Bulawayo Waterworks Company. The dams began as a private business venture.²

The site had a practical advantage: its elevation allowed water to flow by gravity towards storage nearer town. Construction began in 1895. The original scheme had three dams.²

Three, where we now know two.

Then came the rains—and a reversal captured in two extraordinarily brief messages.

In their history of the company, Jim Milne and Rob Burrett recount manager Jack Spreckley sending word to London: “Dams half full.” On 10 January 1898, the message became: “Dams washed away.”²

The upper dams’ spillways could not release the floodwater quickly enough. Water overtopped their earthen walls, eroding them until they failed.²

The lower dam survived with damage. Repairs and rebuilding followed, with further alterations in later years producing the two-dam arrangement familiar today.³

That early disaster was not the end of Hillside’s water troubles. The supply remained unreliable, and dissatisfaction with the company persisted. In 1924, the council acquired the dams and associated water infrastructure. Bulawayo increasingly looked elsewhere for its water.²³

At Hillside, another chapter was taking shape.

The area received National Monument status in 1942. A programme of improvements beginning in 1959 developed paths and added parking, toilets and a tearoom, making the grounds more welcoming for visitors.³⁴

Somewhere to walk among the rocks, watch the birds, or sit over a cup of tea: the old waterworks had found a lasting place in Bulawayo’s life. The dam walls remained, now part of the scenery for people who had come to enjoy an afternoon beside the water.

Perhaps you never wondered who built those walls. There was someone to talk to, a path to follow, a picnic to unpack. The history was there all the same, quietly sharing the afternoon with you.

And your own part of that history matters too. A photograph, a familiar walk, the name of someone you used to go with—these give Hillside a life beyond its dates and company records, whether you are close enough to visit or remembering it from far away.

What are your fond memories of Hillside Dams?

A note on what is not claimed

The precise groundbreaking day is omitted because published accounts differ. The Waterworks Company’s reported £200,000 initial share capital is not treated as the dams’ construction cost. No individual is identified as the proven originator of the scheme. The opening and closing invite readers’ own memories; they do not represent collected testimony or imply identical historical access for every community.