Page 169 - Bulletin 19 2015

166

Murison ship that sank after hitting Bellows Rock. (Fig. 3.61.) Joseph, we are told, floated
ashore on a chicken coop and thereafter refused to go to sea. He was infamous in the

Anderson family because after returning from an overseas trip they discovered that their

double bathing box (with broekie lace) at Dalebrook had disappeared. It took a while for
them to find out that Joseph had sold it and that it was now at St. James!

Consolidation of Quarterdeck Estate had started in 1922 with correspondence with Council

about the Quarterdeck Plateau, as it was referred to, and went on until finality was reached in
1933. (Fig. 3.62.) There had been two main problems. The first was that there was no road

access from the Main Road and this was a recurring theme for years. There was a sandstone

shelf more than 2 m high running across what is the bottom of the present Quarterdeck Road,
and it can still be seen behind Beaufort Villa and Craigside. Clearly, it was a major

impediment to any planned road serving the proposed estate. Finally, in 1933, Council
received a letter confirming that ‘a gang of natives has now been employed during the past

three months cutting away the solid rock …as shown in the sketch (not in file) It asked ‘Will

Council accept a grade of 1 in 6.7 (Kimberley Road being 1 in 7.03)? The City Engineer
replied that when work was completed lots would be released for sale. In March 1934

Council confirmed that Quarterdeck Road from Main Road had now been ‘graded, cleared
and formed sufficiently to give practicable vehicular access’.

Lots were advertised in the Cape Times on 10 March 1934 for a sale on 7 April. (Fig. 3.63.)

As can be seen Quarterdeck Estate encompassed lots owned by the Anderson descendants

above Quarterdeck Road as well. The plots were advertised as ‘practically on a level’! With
the effects of the Great Depression nearing an end in South Africa it may have seemed an

opportune time to sell land. But there was another hurdle that had not quite been cleared: the
matter of servitudes and drainage which would particularly affect Millwood, and there was

copious correspondence about this over some years. At the eleventh hour a letter was
received by Buchanan Boyes, who were handling the sale, from attorneys Jan S de Villiers,

warning that:

‘the representatives of the Estate of the late C Smuts will take steps to prevent the proposed

sale being held unless timely notice be given to all intending purchasers that no servitudinal