An early picture of the Rugby Hotel in Pinetown.
Image: Durban History and Stories
The old picture this week features Pinetown’s famed Rugby Hotel at 153 Old Main Road, today Josiah Gumede Road. The hotel has a long history, although it is not known how it got its name, with many speculate that it may have been as a result of its popularity with local rugby teams.
On the Facebook page Durban History and Stories, Graham Nugent tells of working there (very briefly) as manager under Jeff Kaplan in the early 80s. “Jeff led me to understand that the original owner had connections to Rugby School in the UK. Perhaps he was a teacher,” he writes.
There has been a hotel on the site since 1871, when Pinetown pioneer Archibald Keith Murray, opened his third hotel on the site in the town. It was Murray who named Pinetown in honour of Natal’s second Lieutenant-Governor Benjamin Pine.
A more recent picture of the Rugby Hotel, probably taking in the 1970s. Note the four palm trees.
Image: Durban History and Stories
Murray sailed from Glasgow with his wife and five small children on the Ina in November, 1849, arriving in Durban in March, 1850. He bought 1 361 acres of the farm Salt River and built a house for his family. This site in Park Lane was where he built Pinetown’s first hotel, The Wayside Inn.
In 1857, Murray sold the Wayside Inn to Canon John Crompton. He then built his second hotel a few hundred metres up the road which he named Murray’s. That hotel was demolished in the 1960s and today is the site of Murray Square.
He then went on to build the hotel at 153 Old Main Road, which he sold in 1879, two years before Murray died in London in 1881. It was later known as Turners and then the Palmiet Hotel. It was destroyed by fire in 1889.
The scene on the site today.
Image: Tumi Pakkies / Independent Newspapers
Another Scottish immigrant William Nicol built the Nichol’s Hotel on the site in 1906 which was renamed the Rugby Hotel in 1947, supposedly reflecting the town’s passion for rugby. It was believed to have hosted numerous rugby events, including provincial and national team gatherings.
Certainly many Pinetown residents remember the good old days at its many bars and even some of the characters that served them.
It was demolished in the 1980s to make way for development and is today part of Pinetown’s sprawling motor town. I suspect the four tall palm trees seen in the modern picture are all that is left of over a century of hospitality and entertainment.