Page 65 - Bulletin 13 2009

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Ten years later, in 1826, the Cape Colonial Government, for the first time, established
the post of ‘Civil Engineer’. The first appointee, Mr Reveley, took as his tasks harbour

works in Table Bay and the repair of old buildings. Fortunately, in 1828 Charles
Michell was appointed the first Surveyor General and Civil Engineer at the Cape and he

spent the next 20 years building roads, bridges and mountain passes. In 1831 his

department took over responsibility for the Military Road from the Cape Town
boundary, at The Lines at Fort Knokke, to Simon’s Town.

One of Michell’s innovations on the Simon’s Bay Road (and the road to Eerste River)

was the installation of milestones to act both as road markers and indicate the distance
from the Town House on Greenmarket Square. (Richings, 2006). But the southern

section of the road deteriorated over the years. Dr James Scott, who journeyed by horse

from Simon’s Town to Cape Town and back, on 16 July 1839, found that the road from
Simon’s Town to Muizenberg was “… in many places nothing more than fine loose

white sand in which horses feet and carriage wheels sink deep; but beyond Muizenberg

the road it is very good and kept in excellent order by black (and perhaps white)
convicts; many of whom I saw working on it in chains.” Of Michell’s milestones, in

particular, he made the following comments (quoted in Hole, 1976-77):

“The milestones, however, do not deserve equal commendation. They are of a sort of
blue slate, whereon the distances are engraved in large roman capitals, scarcely legible,
as the letters are not filled up or painted with any colour different from that of the
general surface; and the obscurity is rendered still greater from the position of the stones
which are generally at a considerable distance from the road side. This is somewhat
vexatious and, as you approach “the Capital of Southern Africa” and become naturally
anxious to know when you may hope to escape from a deluge of hot shining sand, in
vain do you look to the milestones for information. They have become ashamed of their
ugly blue, and have clothed themselves in a mantle of white – Satin? – no, but of white
printed paper, announcing to the half-blinded traveller the very interesting intelligence,
that, on a certain day, at an hour which is fixed, “will be sold by public auction, etc,
etc,””

The generally poor condition of the Cape’s roads in the 1840s was confirmed by Laidler
(1926) who stated: