Page 137 - Bulletin 17

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and the congregation moved to Fish Hoek. Apart from minor changes to the buildings forming

this block they remain largely unaltered to this day. Leon Klein did submit plans at one point for
the church to be demolished and replaced with a petrol station. For various reasons, this never

came to pass.

Across Rouxville Road from the church stands Rouxville House, a large Victorian building
owned by Mr and Mrs Roux. (Fig. 3.18.) By 1890 it was fully operational and offering

accommodation. It was subsequently bought by a Mr Black and was converted into flats in 1941.

The 1920 ‘L’ Plan shows that there were a lot of other buildings behind it. (Fig. 3.19.)

In 1948 the then Main Road pharmacist A. G. Allen, who owned Rouxville House and these

cottages, applied to have them demolished on the grounds of overcrowding and their being a
breeding ground for disease. The Council sent out an inspector who found the 7 cottages

crowded, being occupied by fishing families totaling 23 adults and 26 children. Significantly, he
did not find they were a ‘breeding ground for disease’. He did say that they were over 100 years

old (built around 1840), of stone and dry mortar. He believed them to be structurally unsound
and on this basis permission was given to redevelop the site. It was only in the late 1950s that

these cottages and Rouxville House were demolished to make way for the Mare Video building

on the site now. (Fig. 3.20.) Of special interest, in the context of the recorded history of Kalk
Bay, are the names of the families living in the 7 cottages in 1949. Many of them are well known

and some still live in Kalk Bay.

Included in the Gomez family mentioned here was the famous midwife – known as Nurse

Gomez, who delivered hundreds of babies in Kalk Bay and further afield. Abdullah Cozyn has a
th
blanket celebrating his birth as the 1000 baby Nurse Gomez delivered.

Gomez 2 adults 7 children
Hendricks 5 adults 1 child
Williams 2 adults 3 children
Ferreira 3 adults 5 children
Fortune 3 adults 5 children
Moodley 3 adults
Emandien 5 adults 5 children