Page 66 - KBHA Bulletin 10

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The Wynberg Times: 19 September, 1903.

Seaside Notes

The new cemetery off the Royal Road will soon be so far completed as to admit
of burials taking place. The various religious bodies will draw for which advantage
there may be of position or have the sites allocated to them. Mr. Edward Hutt, of the
Maitland Burial Board, is kindly giving the Council the benefit of his long experience
and undoubted knowledge in these matters and from the designs which have been
adopted in the laying out of paths and the planting of shrubs etc, etc, there is all the
promise of Muizenberg and district having at last not only a decent but a modern resting
place for its dead.

At last, on 30 October 1903, the Colonial Government approved the site as a municipal

cemetery, and a letter dated 30 November 1903, to the Town Clerk of the KB-MM from
the Resident Magistrate of Simon’s Town, affirmed this and also pointed out that legal

proceedings would be taken by the Police against anyone burying a corpse anywhere
within the Municipality except in the New Cemetery. (Figs. 2.9 - 2.11).

Three sections were marked out: Dutch Reformed Church, No. 1 (north end), English
Church, No. 2 (middle), and Roman Catholic Church, No. 3 (south end). At some stage

a section was set aside for Jewish burials, and in 1906 the Jewish community applied to
buy their section of the cemetery and to name it “The Muizenberg and Wynberg

Cemetery”. There were two further sections, one for other denominations, and one for
paupers at the north end. In 1907 the Malay Community of Kalk Bay applied to the

Council for financial relief as their cemetery had been rendered useless by the

prohibition on burials outside of the new cemetery, but, on the other hand, the interment
charges here were prohibitive. It is unclear how this matter was resolved but they may

have used Glencairn (Dido Valley) Cemetery instead.

Temporary road access was constructed initially and this was superseded by a hard road

in October 1906. The whole site was fenced in and planted with some thousands of trees
that were expected, when more fully grown, to make this one of the prettiest cemeteries

in the Peninsula. By mid-December 1903 three burials had taken place, and by late