Page 97 - Bulletin 12 2008
P. 97
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Fig. 3.18: Kalk Bay looking north (Barnard, 1875, AG 1681). This very early photograph
is an important document. Taken from the Point, roughly where the hipped cottage is seen
in the watercolour, we see the same sandy road to Simon’s Town, with thatched houses
standing around in irregular fashion. By now, together with the Point cottages, Kalk Bay
has become a true little thatched hamlet with perhaps some fifteen houses. The biggest of
them is the King’s Hotel which, like several of the others, has a hipped roof and dormers
of which the thatch is swept up all the way to the roof-ridge – a feature peculiar to Kalk
Bay. Below the road, two wattle-and-daub boats sheds, one still unfinished showing the
construction of wooden poles and saplings, a sort of plaehuise as they were known in
another fishing village, Hawston. The fishing boats have been hauled as far up the beach
as will secure their safety; with some enormous vats for whale oil in the foreground.
