Page 42 - KBHA Bulletin 10

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Council investigated a proposal at the request of the Fishermen’s Union for the building of
an assembly hall on the site of Wolfsohn’s shops. This hall was to cater for a minimum of

200 people and should include a front stage, a clubroom, a committee-room and
cloakrooms. Added to this would be, with separate entrances, a general dealer’s shop, a

greengrocer’s shop and a caretaker’s flat. The estimate of this building with roads,

preliminary expenses, and layout was £14,050. The Finance Committee turned this down
due to lack of funds. This decision was regretted in later years, as it would have been an

ideal centre for the holding of indoor sports for the fishermen’s children who lacked under-
cover playing facilities.

It was also necessary for Council to construct further retaining walls and garden walls, as

well as fence off 35 gear-net stores. Expenditure was also voted for the completion of

roads, the tarring of yards and the provision of a drying ground with clotheslines, as well as
sculleries suitable for ironing purposes for the washer-women. All these additional costs

totalled £7,605.

One side-effect of the building of the Fishermen’s Flats which is not appreciated is that it

led to almost immediate fall-off in attendance at, and finally the closure of, the Kalk Bay
Municipal Wash House on Lever Street. Washer-women now preferred to wash at home in

the flats as there was three-phase electricity available which provided warmer water as well
as ironing facilities, a service that could not be undertaken at the wash house. Also, the

problem of rusting clotheslines at the wash house, which invariably stained the washing,

was overcome.

On completion of the Fishermen’s Flats the Council offered the Catholic Church some 500
square metres on which to build a Mission School. The ground on Gordon Road was sold

for a nominal fee of one guinea and it was here that Father Doran supervised the building of
the St. James Mission School. The architect was Norman Lubynski and the builder K.

Mann of Third Crescent, Fish Hoek. (Figs. 1.18 & 19).