Page 113 - Bulletin 19 2015
P. 113

110



               changed under the British when land became a marketable commodity and was sold off in
               large parcels with land title or allocated as quitrent grants. The early sub-divisional pattern in

               Kalk Bay is shown in Fig. 3.2. The Quarterdeck Area lies largely within Erf 89659 which

               was sold on 9 August 1816 to Frans Petrus van der Schyff for 7,000 guilders  (£175). It has
               the  shape  of  a  ‘kinked’  rectangle  of  about  25,000  sq.  m.  (2.5  ha)  and  its  boundaries

               influenced the alignments and positions of the future Main Road and the later Quarterdeck
               Road; the southern boundary adjoined Erf 89684, sold in 1817 to Cornelis Gysbert Verwey

               and later became the Holy Trinity Church property; and the northern boundary lay slightly

               beyond today’s Kimberley Road.




               The 1816 sale of Erf 89659 included buildings, one of which was named as a toll house. This

               corroborates the site of the toll gate shown on the DEIC map. The stream in the drawing,
               along with a scale, confirms that these buildings are on the site of later buildings known as

               Millwood  and  Beaufort  Cottage.  They  would  have  been  amongst  the  earliest  buildings  in

               Kalk Bay. (Fig. 3.3.) A specific condition in the original deed was that the sale of liquor was
               forbidden and no wine or tap-house was permitted.





               Malcolm Cobern in his book Story of the Fish Hoek Valley (p. 118) says that after the toll
               house at Muizenberg was taken over by the British for military purposes in 1795 a toll house

               was opened at Kalk Bay on the 20 January 1797 and remained there until 1815. He also says

               that toll tariffs were set originally by the DEIC and then by the British. The role of toll holder
               was hired out to anyone prepared to take on the job. The holder then made his living from the

               tolls and from the profits was supposed to maintain the road – in this case as far as Simon’s
               Town. It is not surprising that over many years there were constant complaints about the state

               of the roads.





               From other research we know that the last toll holder at Kalk Bay was  the same Cornelis
               Gysbert Verwey who applied for and was granted the adjoining Erf 89684 which ran from the

               later Holy Trinity Church boundary southwards towards Belmont Road. (see Bulletin 17 –
               Die Dam – A Social History.)
   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118