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Click to view map Coordinates: | The site was originally bought by TW Becket from the Reformed Church. He rented it out, with the adjacent erf, to the Russian emigrant Jewish entrepreneur Jacob Joffe with the proviso that hotels be built there to meet the needs of rail travellers arriving at the station opposite. The Station Hotel, built on the adjacent site, no longer exists. When the British occupied Pretoria in 1900 of the Anglo-Boer War Lord Roberts renamed the hotel for Queen Victoria. A second storey was added before 1902. In 1913 it is recorded that the hotel was owned and managed by Mr S Brick. He was one of the first in South Africa to own a private plane, which crashed with him as pilot killing him, his wife and another passenger. By 1945 the cast iron verandah posts and railings had been removed and replaced with the current steel posts and masonry balustrade. It is one of the few extant original hotels of Pretoria and representative of the South African Republican (Eclectic Wilhelmiens) style. Much of the interior is original. (Allen, 1971: 127-130; Le Roux, 1993: 27-28). Books that reference Victoria Hotel (originally Hollandia Hotel)
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