Page 132 - Bulletin 18 2014

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The job was a daunting prospect. The easiest access to the dam site was from Kloof Nek, via

the newly constructed pipe track to Kasteelspoort Gorge, through which, after an energetic
scramble, the Back Table and the dam site could be reached. This route would suffice for

personnel, small equipment and provisions to reach the dam site, but how would casks of
cement and heavy equipment be transported? Stewart’s response was to build a cableway

from Camps Bay to the summit of Kasteelspoort and then to lay rail tracks across the plateau
to the construction site. This solved the problem, but it was still impractical for the workforce

to ascend the mountain on foot each day – and the cableway carried only two, and the round

trip took about twenty minutes. (Figs. 3.15 & 3.16.) So Stewart arranged for a small town to
be built at the work site which would house the 500-strong work force which would build the

dam.

Next problem: no construction of this type had previously taken place in the country. Where

would the expertise and muscle power be found? Skilled stonemasons and quarrymen were
recruited from Scotland to excavate the sandstone blocks from the mountain side for the

rubble masonry core; others dressed the facings and placed them to form the durable and
elegant skin to the walls. Local labour was initiated into the rigours and skills of civil

engineering construction, and soon struck up a working relationship with the artisans, despite

the difficulties of understanding the Scottish tongue.

The construction town, which included a post office and a bank, must have rivalled the Wild
West for atmosphere. It was a man’s world where hard men toiled in heat and cold, working

like Trojans, but also having fun. A womanless community of fights, whisky, football, chess

and piano for entertainment. (It is an intriguing thought that the indigenous people could first
have been introduced to soccer by Scottish workmen on the top of Table Mountain!) The

workers were all well cared and catered for and in the end produced the goods.

Work began in 1894 and Tom Stewart’s bold design slowly grew out of the gorge. Deep

foundations were carved into the mountainside to allow for faults and weak layers in the
treacherous sandstone. The section across the deepest part of the gorge is an arch, some 40

metres high and 17 metres wide at the base; the flanking walls are relatively low, and the
overflow spillway is spanned by an elegant little bridge. (Figs. 3.17 – 3.23.)