Page 107 - Bulletin 17 2013

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The golf links have been laid out by a golf professional who regards the site as
eminently suitable, while the course can claim the distinction of being the only one known on
the top of a mountain. Other important features are in contemplation, principal among which
is the erection of a sanatorium and the possibilities in the way of beneficial utilization of the
plateau are almost infinite.

There were objections to the scheme. One suggested that visitors would prefer to have

motorcar access to the plateau’s amenities and that this could be achieved via the pipe-line

path from Lakeside to Silvermine Reservoir – foreshadowing the Ou Kaapse Weg that would
be constructed 44 years later. The railway promoters were not averse to this but argued the

railway was intended to serve the majority of people who could not afford cars or who lacked
the ability to climb the mountain. They also argued for the railway’s convenience given its

starting point in the centre of Muizenberg and the shortness of the route to the top, compared
to the much longer mountain road route.

Nothing further is known of the scheme and as it never happened it was probably sunk by
financial difficulties and the Great Depression.

Simon’s Town Cableway

Simon’s Town was the site of the South Peninsula’s only people-carrying cableway. It may
also have been the first in South Africa to be used for carrying people. Its purpose was to

convey patients and equipment between the West Dockyard and the new Naval Hospital on
the mid-slope and the Sanatorium higher up on the Red Hill Plateau.

It came about because the original hospital, built between 1812 – 14 at the southern end of
town, had become inadequate. In 1897, the naval C-in-C, Rear-Admiral Sir Harry Rawson,

applied to Governor Sir Alfred Milner for the transfer to the Admiralty of land on the
mountain-side for a new facility. This was successful and site preparations commenced in

January 1899. In 1901 an aerial ropeway was suggested by the Dockyard’s Officer-in-Charge
of Works as the most efficient means of conveying people because there would be no

obstruction of traffic, less probability of the public contracting infectious diseases, and no

wear and tear on the roads. It is possible that he was influenced by the City Council’s
successful operation of its aerial ropeway to the dams on Table Mountain.