Page 59 - Bulletin 13 2009

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It is clear from this account that a ‘road’, in the formal sense, scarcely existed. It is also
apparent that the area was hardly inhabited. In both this and Semple’s account of 1800

Simon’s Town is barely a town and consisted of about 20 houses scattered along a bend
in the shore, a magazine and store-houses containing workshops and forges for repairing

the wood and iron work of ships, a hospital, slave quarters, and the Company garden of

4 acres – almost a miniature version of Cape Town. Muizenberg has a military
significance and post, but there is no mention of Kalk Bay in any form, either as a

geographical point of interest or as a settlement. We may assume that it existed in little
more than name. Even in 1811 James Ewart makes no mention of Kalk Bay, but

Simon’s Town had grown to 40 to 50 houses in addition to the naval buildings.

Era 2: 1806 / 1814–1880s - The Cape Colonial Years: The Military Road

The British therefore inherited a sandy track over which access to Simon’s Town was

almost impracticable, except in wagons of the strongest build, and even then it was

extremely difficult. But this was to change as they consolidated their presence at the
Cape as part of their unfolding Imperial Project. Soon after 1795 all the fortifications on

the False Bay coast were strengthened by General Craig, while the DEIC tradition of a
summer and winter port for both naval and commercial vessels was continued. So there

were naval arsenals and workshops at both Table Bay and Simon’s Bay.

However, the dual anchorage was soon found to be inefficient and expensive and was

discontinued from the winter of 1814, whereafter, for the next 143 years, Simon’s Bay
was used as the sole station of the British Fleet in southern African waters. (Theal,

1902). This drew attention to the need for a proper road between the two poles of
Peninsula settlement. The Governor at this time was Lord Charles Somerset and he

made construction of the Simon’s Bay Road the Colony’s number one public work “…..
the excessive badness (of which) had already raised the naval contracts to an enormous

height and which if not undertaken would in a short time have become so impassable

that I doubt the possibility of finding persons willing to supply the Naval Department