Page 50 - KBHA Bulletin 10

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CEMETERIES OF KALK BAY

Barrie Gasson

Early cemeteries

Not much is known about how or where the earliest burials were undertaken in Kalk
Bay. Nor do the early sketches, paintings and photographs provide any information

because they emphasised the natural attractions and beauty of the area and the charm of
the fishing village. Kalk Bay, in common with many coastal places, was regarded as a

health resort, a place to be visited in order to restore one’s health and prolong life.

For example, in the Cape Town Mail of 27 November 1841, it was stated that “ …. the

most miraculous recoveries are constantly taking place at this wonderful part of the

country, …… Those who keep pace with the times, instead of taking physic for ailings,
take themselves off to Kalk Bay, with a sure prospect of more speedy and pleasant

recovery.”

Some forty years later the editor of the Cape Times, in January 1883, penned a different
view in which there is the first explicit reference to the problem of burial of the dead:

During the south-easters travellers to Kalk Bay were not only subjected to “the miseries

of a jolting Cape cart” but also had to endure the “clouds of pulverised road metal” that
swept along the unmade road. Upon arrival they found a barren place devoid of shade

trees, and a straight, narrow and dusty track resembling a long trough in which wagons
and carts churned up the dust and etceteras mixed up with it. The place itself was

“barren with a vengeance”; it had a “let-down buffer-muffer look” which was
“distressing to the orderly-minded”; pigs and cows and horses roamed at will among the

buildings and on the roads; there was no organized water supply, sanitation or refuse

removal; and, the mountain slope was “used promiscuously as a grave-yard”. (Italics
added). Many of these unhealthy conditions persisted for another 20 years. In 1901